Even if you don't fully understand a word, you can piece together from the context what was said.
In German for example, they're IMO total overkill (as in cost far outweighs benefit).
But then, you have to take into account that over-engineering things is a national hobby in Germany.
The question becomes chicken-and-egg: did the language induce the cultural trait or did the cultural trait structure the language.
I'm not a linguist by any means but as I understand it's a separate language with its' own dialects. Lower saxon nowadays might have a gradual dialect continuum in the West into the Netherlands but in a days of Hanse it was a widespread language around the Baltic sea and had a huge influence on other languages and cultures. Even today part of it's dialects are closer to Swedish than high German (specially Pommern which was part of Sweden for quite some time).
Other questions that make language fun. Any ideas where eenie meanie miney moe comes from? Why does flat (low) German exist, and how far is it from Dutch (or English)? How many dialects of various languages are spoken in the Alps? Why do we call different Chinese dialects "dialects" and not "languages"? Which language has the most diverse set of conjugation rules? But I digress.