British English

 

BRITISH ENGLISH

British English is the English language as spoken and written in the United Kingdom or, more broadly, throughout the British Isles. Slight regional variations exist in formal, written English in the United Kingdom.

English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the northern Netherlands. The resident population at this time was generally speaking Common Brittonic—the insular variety of continental Celtic, which was influenced by the Roman occupation. This group of languages (Welsh, Cornish, Cumbric) cohabited alongside English into the modern period, but due to their remoteness from the Germanic languages, influence on English was notably limited.