British language not to be confused with British English.  

I was a pretty mediocre English Lang. student though – but I did find the subject interesting.

I suppose my original comment was musing at the phrase ‘British English’ (which wasn’t a mistake on your part, it’s a perfectly accepted phrase) – it’s as good as saying ‘EMP Pulse’ for me.

Although the Angles were a minority of the conquering “Germanic” peoples, their language seems to have survived.  Probably because their homeland on the Cimbrian Peninsula had been geographically situated between speakers of Jutlandic, Saxon Thiudisc, Suebian, Frisian, Danish (and even what would become William the Conquerors Frankish- and Gallo-Roman-influenced Norwegian. Rollo the Viking was his ancestor, who visited Paris and Burgundy). 

Angeln being a trading crossroads, the traffic center,  of the Proto-Germanic speakers during the Iron Age, when the Germanic languages first diverged into separate branches, is likely to have maintained a language comprehensible to all its neighbours.  A lingua franca, a common language with simple grammar, picking up words from every direction.  It was not a big place. 
It seems to have kept this role and quality on the Roman parts of the Island they invaded, many of their new neighbours being their old neighbours whose languages diminished into local dialects of English over time. 

Germans are one of the largest constituent ethnic groups in Canada, the largest in the USA, yet English, simple, polished, well worn and with the worlds largest pool of mostly borrowed words has a clear lead. 
English is still the fastest growing language in the world. 

Not everybody moved to the British Islands.  Archeology indicates that about 30% of the population stayed behind, their language being influenced by Jutes, Danes, the Saxon and then Frankish Thiudisc (as in Dutch, Deutsch and Teutonic). 
It barely survived, if at all, in the form of a dialect of Plattdütsch,  Angeliter Platt, going extinct as a native spoken language in this generation. 
You think you’d understand more than the gist of what a current day Angle says in his tongue?  If he speaks it. 

 But it’s really true, I would understand as much or more of the interview if it was in Dutch, Norwegian or Hawaiian Pidgin. 
Too different.  Will get British movies from Library. 

Too long, sorry, periphery of favored subject, currently live there. 
It’s just what I think. 
Couldn’t find a good map, drew something. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIaiW1XrzxA

It’s English bub, plain and simple.  The nationality is in the name of the language.