British English

British English is the standard dialect of English language as spoken and written in the
United Kingdom.[3] Variations exist in formal, written English in the United Kingdom. For
example, the adjective wee is almost exclusively used in parts of Scotland and Ireland, and
occasionally Yorkshire, whereas little is predominant elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a
meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within the United Kingdom, and this could
be described by the term British English. The forms of spoken English, however, vary
considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken,[4] so a
uniform concept of British English is more difficult to apply to the spoken language.
According to Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English, British English shares "all
the ambiguities and tensions in the word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted
in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity".[5]

British English
Native to
United Kingdom
Language family
Indo-European
Germanic
West Germanic
Anglo-Frisian
Anglic
English
British English
Early forms
Old English
Middle English
Early Modern English
Standard forms
Received Pronunciation
Standard Scottish English
Writing system
Latin (English alphabet)
Official status
Official language in
United Kingdom (originally England)
Regulated by
BBC (pronunciation&vocabulary)
no regulatory body (grammar)
Language codes
ISO 639-3
–
IETF
en-GB
When distinguished from American English, the term "British English" is sometimes used
broadly as a synonym for the various varieties of English spoken in some member states of
the Commonwealth of Nations.

Contents
History Edit
Main article: History of the English language
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. However, the degree of influence remains debated, and it
has recently been argued that its grammatical influence accounts for the substantial
innovations noted between English and the other West Germanic languages.[6] Initially, Old
English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon
Kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon, eventually came to
dominate. The original Old English language was then influenced by two waves of invasion:
the first was by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who
conquered and colonised parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries; the second was the
Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an English
variety of this called Anglo-Norman. These two invasions caused English to become "mixed"
to some degree (though it was never a truly mixed language in the strictest sense of the
word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who
develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication).

The more idiomatic, concrete and descriptive English is, the more it is from Anglo-Saxon
origins. The more intellectual and abstract English is, the more it contains Latin and French
influences e.g. swine (like the Germanic schwein) is the animal in the field bred by the
occupied Anglo-Saxons and pork (like the French porc) is the animal at the table eaten by
the occupying Normans.[7]

Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and

lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to
the grafting onto that Germanic core of a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance
branch of the European languages. This Norman influence entered English largely through
the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of great
flexibility and with a huge vocabulary.