It's spoken in the area of Baden-Wuertemburg (sorry for the "ue"...I don't know how to do umlauts or accents on this thing!). That's west of Bavaria. They have a very distinct dialect, that's so different from standard
German or anything else it looks like an entirely different language, perhaps in a different family...I have an easier time reading Swedish, and that says something! I don't even know a word of it!
I think I forgot to mention that the post said nothing about Japanese...it did say something that looked a lot like fantastical or fantasy, but I can't be sure of the meaning.
I'm also learning French.