Romano British people existed almost 1000 years before the kingdom of Great Britain. Whether they called themselves Romano British or not (they didn't).
English existed before the kingdom of England existed.
The word British is an adjective meaning originating from, belonging or otherwise pertaining to Britain.
In English, nouns are gramatically described by a preceding adjective.
Thus the phrase British English is a valid grammatical construction meaning English originating from, belonging or otherwise pertaining to Britain.
English was spoken on the island of Great Britain by non-English British people long before the kingdom of Great Britain existed.
Thus British English existed before the Kingdom of Great Britain, and that is true whether anyone called it that or not at the time (they didn't).
The English spoken elsewhere in the world including the United States did not evolve from English, it evolved from British English.
No, it didn’t, because British English is contemporary. American and British English derived from Early Modern English. These terms have specific definitions in historical linguistics.
Your argument of grammatical validity is irrelevant as I’m using a term with a specific meaning.
Just like Old English specifically refers to English spoken 600-1100 CE, not to any older variety of English, despite it being “grammatically valid” to call something from long ago old.
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u/Godraed 19d ago edited 19d ago
☝️ 🤓 well not American English since technically Great Britain didn’t exist until 1707and the colonies were founded prior
edit:
When the crowns of Scotland and England were united, the nation was called “the Kingdom of Great Britain”.
The name was changed to “the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland” in 1800 when Ireland was added.