'A language is a dialect with an army and a fleet ' --> I hadn't heard this before, love it! For the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_a...
A bit of relevant context: the quote is from Yiddish, which is primarily Germanic with significant admixture from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Slavic languages.
(One of my current favorite party tricks is speaking Yiddish to German speakers, and cranking up the other aspects to see where the intelligibility breaks down.)
I took a trip to Germany with my Dad, who grew up with Yiddish-speaking parents, and it was amazing to watch people's eyeballs pop out as they began to understand him and then realize what they were hearing.