Nelson (1994) listed the Sundasalangidae as an osmerid family, but Ralf Britz (personal communication, November 2003) noted that "It is very clear that Sundasalanx is a clupeoid, Darrell Siebert thought it might be the sister group of the clupeid Jenkinsia, but Kottelat & I disagreed saying that so little is known about Southeast Asian clupeomorphs that we thought Siebert's conclusion is premature. Sundasalanx might well turn out to be a clupeid, but we assigned it to its own family mainly to encourage people to keep having a closer look at its relationships"