The article seems to say it's random chance, based upon one linguists opinion. Doesn't at all feel right statistically. Seems more likely there would be some kind of missing link.
Could someone better informed possibly figure out the odds?
Why not? Many unrelated languages steer towards the open syllable rule. It's basically the only similarity between Japanese and African languages. Open syllables without complex consonant clusters are easier to pronounce.
Say, Proto-Slavic phonetics mostly allowed only open syllables, although its ancestor and descendants allow more complex clusters. For example, Proto-Indoeuropean domos "house" became Proto-Slavic domu, and mater "mother" became mati.
Let's list some Proto-Slavic words: noga "foot", ronka "hand", nosu "nose", oko "eye", podushiwa "foot sole", noguti "nail" etc.
You can cherrypick many languages like that (Finnish, Maori, Basque, even French to some extent)
It would be much more surprising if they found 2 unrelated languages and they both had same complex clusters a la Georgian (mtsvrtneli "trainer").
