Introduction

The British people, and later the Americans, captured numerous colonies, dominions and mandated territories. This process contributed to the spread of English. English is the official language of many countries, including the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.

Standart English - the official language of Great Britain taught at schools and universities, used by the press, the radio and the television and spoken by educated people may be" defined as that form of English which is current and literary, substantially uniform and recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood.

British English is the English language as spoken and written in Great Britain or, more broadly, throughout the British Isles.

Features:

§ Word Differences
There are literally hundreds of words that are different in British English. Example: lift – elevator

§ Re as Opposed to Er
Example: centre – center

§ Our as Opposed to Or
Example: colour – color

§ Received Pronunciation
British accents vary from region to region but most educated, middle-class Brits speak with what is known as received pronunciation or "RP." RP is sometimes referred to as the "Queen's English" and in its strictest form sounds very upper crust. However, most Brits speak a softer form of RP.

§ Regional Accents
They are the Southern English dialect, the Midlands English dialect and the Northern English dialect. Most other accents and dialects in Britain are in fact a variation on one of these three.

§ The Dropped H and the Added H
Dropping the H at the beginning of a word is largely a working-class dialect feature in Britain. Hence, "harm" comes out sounding like "arm" or "hair" sounds like "air."

American English, or United States (U.S.) English, is the set of dialects of the English language native to the United States.

Features:

§ Simplify variant of English
Example:
AE - BE
Favor-Favour
Traveled-Travelled
Check-Cheque
Program - Programme

§ Word Difference
Example: drugstore(AE) – chemist(BE) – druggist(AuE)

Canadian English Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA) is the variety of English spoken in Canada.

Features:

§ It is intermediate between BE and AE

§ Borrowing from indigenous languages.
Example: from the Indian languages come chipmunk, mackinaw (a bush jacket), moose, muskeg (boggy, mossy land), muskrat. From Inuktitut come kayak, mukluk, anorak, parka, malemute, husky.

§ Borrowing from French
Example: caboteur (a ship engaged in coastal trade), cache (a place for storing supplies; a supply of goods kept for future use), portage (the carrying of canoes past rapids), voyageur (a French-Canadian canoeman in the service of the fur companies)

Australian English (AusE, AuE, AusEng, en-AU) is a major variety of the English language and is used throughout Australia.

Features:

§ It was influenced by American, British, and New Zealand influence.

§ Using of the special slang
Example: “Cactus” means dead and “Captain Cook” means look (noun)

§ Using of the words
Example: “data” has only plural form.

§ Using of the archaisms
Example: it’s still possible to say “whilst – amongst” in lieu of modern “while – among”

New Zealand English (NZE, en-NZ) is the dialect of the English language used in New Zealand.

Features:

§ NZE is similar to AuE

§ Mostly NZE shares rules of BE
Example: New Zealand spelling of -re words such as centre, theatre have always officially followed the British spelling

§ Gram, the unit of mass, is commonly spelt as such and not gramme, which is somewhat found in British English. The same holds true for the word's derivates (e.g. kilogram is commoner than kilogramme).

Sources:

http://www.ehow.com/info_8549074_features-british-english.html

http://ua-referat.com/Основні_особливості_варіантів_англійської_мови

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-CANADIANENGLISH.html

http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html

http://ref.by/refs/29/36518/1.html

http://englishschool12.ru/publ/grammatika_anglijskogo_jazyka/grammatika_anglijskogo_jazyka/standard_english_variants_and_dialects/63-1-0-2099