Does anyone know why our SuiteAnswers environment would default to German instead of English?

Home set preference change the value in help center I think

You are special, mine always defaults to Dutch! (and I have never had Dutch language selected ever ever ever), and yes, it is in Home Preferences, but you can also change it first time in SA, and it will keep

Fwiw it has been like this for years - that German is the default for new users. One of those bugs that will probably never get fixed since it's so minor.