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===Li (1937)=== In a survey in the 1937 ''Chinese Yearbook'', [[Li Fang-Kuei]] described the family as consisting of four branches:{{sfnp|Li|1937|pp=60–63}}{{sfnp|Handel|2008|p=424}} {{tree list}} * Indo-Chinese (Sino-Tibetan) ** Chinese ** [[Tai languages|Tai]] (later expanded to [[Kam–Tai languages|Kam–Tai]]) ** [[Hmong–Mien languages|Miao–Yao]] (Hmong–Mien) ** [[Tibeto-Burman]] {{tree list/end}} Tai and Miao–Yao were included because they shared [[isolating language|isolating]] typology, [[tone (linguistics)|tone]] systems and some vocabulary with Chinese. At the time, tone was considered so fundamental to language that tonal typology could be used as the basis for classification. In the Western scholarly community, these languages are no longer included in Sino–Tibetan, with the similarities attributed to diffusion across the [[Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area]], especially since {{harvtxt|Benedict|1942}}.{{sfnp|Handel|2008|p=424}} The exclusions of Vietnamese by Kuhn and of Tai and Miao–Yao by Benedict were vindicated in 1954 when [[André-Georges Haudricourt]] demonstrated that the tones of Vietnamese were reflexes of final consonants from [[Proto-Mon–Khmer language|Proto–Mon–Khmer]].{{sfnp|Matisoff|1991|p=487}} Many Chinese linguists continue to follow Li's classification.{{efn|See, for example, the "Sino-Tibetan" (汉藏语系 ''Hàn-Zàng yǔxì'') entry in the "languages" (語言文字, ''Yǔyán-Wénzì'') volume of the ''[[Encyclopedia of China]]'' (1988).}}{{sfnp|Handel|2008|p=424}} However, this arrangement remains problematic. For example, there is disagreement over whether to include the entire [[Kra–Dai languages|Kra–Dai]] family or just [[Kam–Tai languages|Kam–Tai]] (Zhuang–Dong excludes the [[Kra languages]]), because the Chinese cognates that form the basis of the putative relationship are not found in all branches of the family and have not been reconstructed for the family as a whole. In addition, Kam–Tai itself no longer appears to be a valid node within Kra–Dai.
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