In the perl.xml file which controls the highlighting of my editor I found a pragma named english. In the docu I found only a build-in module named English, but no english pragma. Is the english entry an error or is this some sort of legacy?
Sounds like a typo on the part of the makers of your editor. The module is named English. If we look back at the earliest version of perl on CPAN, we can see that it was named English back then as well.