Such shepherds may know a few words of English (6)
I believe the answer is:
german
'english' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'such shepherds may know a few words' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'a' could be 'an' and 'an' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'germ' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'of' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for german that I've seen before include "Eg, native to Berlin" , "This national rang me up" , "European language" , "Nationality of citizen of Bonn" , "Rang me up about the nationality" .)