Standard English is the official language of Great Britain taught at schools and universities, used by the press, the radio and television and spoken by educated people. It is that form of English that is current and literary, substantially uniform and recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood. Modern linguistics distinguishes territorial variants of a national language and local dialects. Variants of a language are regional varieties possessing a literary form. Besides British English there are two variants of English on the territory of the British Isles: Scottish English and Irish English. The main variants of the English language in the world are English in the USA, or American English, English in Canada, or Canadian English, English in Australia, or Australian English, English in New Zealand.
Local dialects are varieties of the English language characteristic for and used in some localities (districts), which have no normalized literary form. Cockney is the local Southern dialect of London. As spoken by the uneducated Londoners Cockney differs greatly from Standard English in phonetics, grammar and vocabulary.
The English language was brought to the American continent at the beginning of the 17th century and to Australia and New Zealand at the end of the 18th century. It was inevitable that on the new territories in the new conditions the subsequent development of the English language diverged from that of British English. Thus, variants of the English language have developed in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other English speaking countries, which differ from British English by their peculiar pronunciation, grammar and spelling peculiarities and by their vocabulary. But they have preserved the same phonetic system, the same grammar system and the common Basic Word Stock.
