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Linguists in the past have divided the Indo-European family of languages into two large sub-groups: the Centum Languages and the Satem Languages. These names come from the words used for "hundred" in each group, but the similarities are supposed based on many other factors as well.

Thanks! I've read about the Centem and Satem bits before. So, maybe the geographical issues are correct -- viz. the Slavic languages did break off from the Irani-Indic languages later than German.
But, I speak French, German and know Latin and Sanskrit and a bit of Polish (serious history buff) and it does seem to me like German and Sanskrit have more in common with each other than Polish. Of course I haven't studied Polish or other Slavic languages in depth, so can't really be sure.

I guess you have to be familiar with arcane rules of philology and lingusitics to really understand this stuff.

I'm not.

You have an impressive linguistic command. I can on;ly read and write English and Latin and a little classical Greek. I remember little of my school-year German and Spanish, having never had the opportunity to use them while growing up.