Here's a breakdown:
* Sanskrit itself refers to a classical language used in ancient and medieval India for religious texts, literature, and scholarly works. It's considered a dead language, meaning it's not spoken natively by anyone today.
* Indo-Aryan languages make up a large family of languages spoken throughout South Asia, including Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati, and many others. These languages all share a common ancestor with Sanskrit, making them part of the Sanskrit family.
So, while we can say that Sanskrit is a language, it's more accurate to say that it's the root of a family of languages.