Game engine?

Hey there, I may be posting this in the wrong section, but this looks like the right place for this question.
And I know that there are alot of programming guru's and talents on epvp, so hopefuly they/you can answer my question! :)

Anyway, I'm learning programming (nothing special) and I wanna know how game engines work, like what are they made of, what's the best language to code an engine (and how to do so). Stuff like that.

So basicly my questions are:
What's a game engine? (I know the term, but I don't fully understand HOW they work)
What's the best language to code my first engine?
What's it made of? What are the basic parts of a game engine? What "parts" are responsible for what? (rendering, sound, textures, animations)

Thanks for the answers! :)

Questions:

- What's a game engine? (I know the term, but I don't fully understand HOW they work)
A Gameengine is an abstraction layer to the underlying components (physics, rendering, sound, etc)
It also works as the glue beetwen these.

- What's the best language to code my first engine?
None, first you should get some experience developing games.
Before approaching developing a generalized system of components.

- What's it made of? What are the basic parts of a game engine?
Many different components (physics, sound, renderer, entity managment, etc)
Most of them also interface to external middleware.

One other thing:
Most current Engines, are developed in C/C++.
While in the tools area, C# is getting more acceptance.


Some of these answers are simplified.
Good luck on your quest.

Thank you for your answers, but how can I get experience in game develpment if I have (know how to make) the key game component?