“By the 1830s [European fascination with Sanskrit] had led to a general perception of the Indo-European language family which, in the racist atmosphere of the time, developed quite quickly into the notion of an Indo-European or ‘Aryan race’. The passion for India also meant that it replaced Egypt as the exotic ancestor of Europe. This time, however, the ancestry was not seen in terms of the transmission of philosophy and reason but as a Romantic one of ‘blood’ and kinship.”