British English

Forms of the English language used in Britain

Also known as English (United Kingdom) · United Kingdom English · UK English · BrE · BE · Commonwealth English

Instance of: ethnolect
, regiolect
Subclass of: Insular English

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

British English is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom, especially Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the United Kingdom taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English, Welsh English, and Northern Irish English. Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with] 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".

Overview

All data

30 statements · 20% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Wikimedia language code: en-gb
Indigenous to: United Kingdom
Native label: British English
Related category: Category:British English pronunciation category contains: pronunciation
Script: Latin script

Data quality

statements

20%

externally sourced

Source last edited October 2, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). British English (Q7979). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/british-english-Q7979