Edwin G. Pulleyblank
As Yuèjuèshū () states that the Yue word for "sea" is also 夷 (*"li" → "yí"), Sinologist Axel Schuessler proposes an Austroasiatic etymology for the ethnonym *"li" by comparing to Khmer "dhle" "sea", from Pre-Angkorian Old Khmer "danle(y)" "large expanse of water"; thus the ethnonym might have referred to a people living by the sea, When analyzing possible Austroasiatic loanwords into Old Chinese, Schuessler noticed that that one layer of loanwords, from one or more Austroasiatic language(s) into Old Chinese spoken in the Yellow River basin, showed affinities to modern Khmeric and Khmuic languages, and occasionally to Monic. Earlier, Edwin G. Pulleyblank (1983, 1999) also proposed that the Yi were Austroasiatic speakers. Laurent Sagart (2008) instead suggested that the Yi languages were ancestral to Austronesian languages and formed a sister-group to Sino-Tibetan.