No. Sanskrit is not derived from Indo-European family. There is absolutely no evidence for that. Nor do South Indian languages appear linguistically distinct. I

No. Sanskrit is not derived from Indo-European family. There is absolutely no evidence for that. Nor do South Indian languages appear linguistically distinct. I'm a Kannadiga and many Kannada words are directly derived from Sanskrit. My mother is a Tamilian and a lot of Tamil words are also derived from Sanskrit. This falsehood was spread by the British. > In any case, Iranians today identify as Aryans (Iran effectively means the land of Aryans in old Persian, as I understand) and the general western consensus these days seems to deem Indo-Iranians as Aryans especially due to obvious recent historical connotations during which many in the west dissociated from the term. It doesn't matter because India was also called Āryāvarta (Abode of the Aryans) in the Ancient days. This was way before Iran got it's name (possibly in the 3rd century A.D). Iran was called Persia in the olden days. The word Aryan itself has multiple meanings. The definition of Proto-European Aryan is different from Indo-Aryans of India.