Eighteenth-century scholarship grounded European languages in an Oriental source

Evidence

The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three without believing them to have sprung from some common source. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 204

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: This is the founding definitional move the whole Scaffolding module needs — the claim that grounds European identity in a ‘distant, harmless’ Oriental origin, which later Orientalism and Islamophobia readings will invert into an antagonistic framing.
• XREF: Connects to the ‘common source’ fantasy of a shared Aryan/Indo-European root that later racializes and hierarchizes the very proximity claimed here.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 204