(1) "No wonder so many languages are derived from it." >Not sure what he is referring to exactly, but Sanskrit itself is a descendent of proto Indo-European, fr

(1) "No wonder so many languages are derived from it." >Not sure what he is referring to exactly, but Sanskrit itself is a descendent of proto Indo-European, from which many other Western languages were derived. So it is a near cousin to the original language of the Indo-European people, but not the direct ancestor of Western languages (this was a misconception of the 19th century linguists that "discovered" Sanskrit). This misconception is very much like that of creationists when propose that evolution means "people came from monkeys"; when in fact we simply share increasingly recent common ancestors as you move from primitive primates to the other great apes.