Linguistic AHC: North American English mainly non-rhotic

With POD no later than 1700, make the entire North America English speakers as non-rhotic instead of rhotic in OTL. What would be the consequences in American and Canadian culture if their English dialects are mainly non-rhotic?
 
It would require a new wave of British immigrants numerically overwhelming the existing population, whose ancestors came in before r-dropping was common. Trouble is, in the early 18c, when such immigration would still have been plausible, only the prestige accents in Britain were non-rhotic.
 
It would require a new wave of British immigrants numerically overwhelming the existing population, whose ancestors came in before r-dropping was common. Trouble is, in the early 18c, when such immigration would still have been plausible, only the prestige accents in Britain were non-rhotic.

There are also some American accents that are non-rhotic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English#United_States

Strengthen the influence of these dialects at an early point of time, and you might get there.
 
There are also some American accents that are non-rhotic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English#United_States

Strengthen the influence of these dialects at an early point of time, and you might get there.

Those accents became non-rhotic under British influence. That's why they're concentrated near East Coast ports - American sailors picked up r-dropping from the Brits and then spread it locally. By then, there was enough settlement in the Midwest that the US was not going to standardize on any East Coast accent.
 
Yeah, but on the other hand, rhoticity was the norm in much of Britain until relatively recently. If some non-rhotic accent becomes the standard in television and radio, that could help quite a bit.
 
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