Indo-European languages
The first account to mention Sanskrit is from Filippo Sassetti. Born in Florence, Italy, in 1540, he was a merchant who was among the first Europeans to study Sanskrit. Writing in 1585, he noted some word similarities between Sanskrit and Italian such as devaḥ/dio "God", sarpaḥ/serpe "serpent", sapta/sette "seven", aṣṭa/otto "eight", nava/nove "nine"). However, neither observation led to further scholarly inquiry.