English Dialects: American and British

Why should we list British before American? After all, American starts with an A and British with a B. Just as the lists of countries when filling out forms at websites have changed, so that the most popular countries that were once listed at the top have been put in their places alphabetically, so also should we follow suit here.

I often hear students complaining that they are learning British English in one class and American English in mine. So I am providing some sites regarding dialects.

First off, here are some resources on British English:
Collect Britain
Learning: Sounds Familiar?

The Wikipedia (unfortunately not a greatly respectable resource, but usually pretty reliable) informs us regarding English in Britain, "The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken and a uniform concept of "British English" is therefore more difficult to apply to the spoken language." Furthermore, we are informed regarding the pronunciation taught to students of English as a foreign language, "The most common form of English used by the British ruling class is that originating from southeast England (the area around the capital, London, and the ancient English university towns of Oxford and Cambridge). This form of the language is known as the 'Received Standard', and its accent is called Received Pronunciation (RP), which is improperly regarded by many people outside the UK as 'the British accent'. Earlier it was held as better than other accents and referred to as the King's (or Queen's) English...Moreover, only approximately two percent of Britons speak RP."

"The official languages of the European Union" indicates English, but not which dialect of English is meant. Regarding differences between British and American English see this page on Wikipedia.