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I pronounce roll with the same vowel as the word all.

roll - [ɹɔɫ]

all - [ɔɫ]

But for role, I will often actually use the vowel in bowl

role - [ɹɔuɫ]

bowl - [bɔuɫ]

However, when I encountered someone typing roll instead of role, I realized they are homophones for that speaker. A lot of dictionaries list them as such.

Is this an uncommon spoken distinction? I could name a lot more words that are not homophones to me, like poll/pole

iopq
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    Where are you? What dialect do you speak? – alphabet Nov 21 '23 at 02:58
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    In no way does roll ever rhyme with fall, if that's what you’re saying. The r-word in barrel roll sounds the same as in starring role (in my American English). – Tinfoil Hat Nov 21 '23 at 03:11
  • American English, roll, fall, stall all rhyme to me. But raw and Amon Ra do not. I have two back vowels, [ɔ] and [ɑ]; but I also have the diphthong [ɔu] – iopq Nov 21 '23 at 03:34
  • @iopq Where, specifically, in America? Do other people in your area/family also pronounce roll this way? – alphabet Nov 21 '23 at 03:38
  • From California, but my family is from Ukraine so they don't speak English natively. I did notice a lot of people in my area merge ɔ with ɑ which I don't in the same places. I say father and bother the same, but I don't merge them before W or L. – iopq Nov 21 '23 at 03:45
  • You mention "I could name a lot more words that are not homophones to me" -- can you list some more of them? – alphabet Nov 21 '23 at 03:51
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    (Role and roll are indeed homophones even for AmE speakers without the cot-caught merger, the father-bother merger, or any of the pre-/l/ mergers, so this is likely something idiosyncratic.) – alphabet Nov 21 '23 at 03:52
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    Law/lo (and behold)/la (dee da) all three have different vowels, ɔ/ɔu/ɑ making a three way distinction – iopq Nov 21 '23 at 03:59
  • Slavic languages may shorten vowels as such. AE has long, wrong, and strong rhyming. But if I am teasing a Slavic speaker with "strong like bull" (and no article), the strong rhymes with strrrung. – Yosef Baskin Nov 21 '23 at 04:41
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    Just to confirm, you pronounce role with the LOT vowel, to rhyme with doll and knoll (as in grassy) and moll (as in gangster) and lol (as in cat)? That may help to narrow down the characterization of your accent. – Tevildo Nov 21 '23 at 09:47
  • Wonder if the OP pronounces "rôle" influenced by French, although it doesn't seem a direct copy. – Stuart F Nov 21 '23 at 12:42
  • Just to throw in one from the other side of the pond; roll/role & poll/pole are homonyms or direct rhymes. Though there are some here who would hint at adding the 'w' sound into the simple long 'o' as a diphthong, they would do it equally for all four words. Roll & all do not rhyme. They do not share a vowel. – Tetsujin Nov 21 '23 at 13:58
  • I don't pronounce role with the LOT vowel because I merge that with father. It's confusing to use that category for me. But yes, the general category is back vowels before L, W, U. So that would include knoll, but for some reason not doll which I would use the father vowel in. – iopq Nov 21 '23 at 14:15
  • @Tevildo — In no way does knoll rhyme with doll, moll, or lol. – Tinfoil Hat Nov 21 '23 at 14:42
  • @TinfoilHat - they do for me - southern English RP. – Michael Harvey Nov 21 '23 at 17:30
  • They do for me too, Yorkshire, N. BrE - 'noll' not 'nowl'. – Tetsujin Nov 21 '23 at 17:53
  • To be clear: there is a well-known doll/dole merger in BrE, but that isn't relevant here, since roll (despite orthography) is in the dole class. – alphabet Nov 21 '23 at 18:45
  • Also: does bowl have the same diphthong as goat, or is there a difference between the two? How narrow are the transcriptions in your questions intended to be? (As I recall, California English in particular can have a great deal of "GOAT-fronting," which can get cancelled by a following /l/.) – alphabet Nov 21 '23 at 19:09
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    I guess goat can be close to [ɡ̥ɤʊtˀ] in that bowl [b̥oʊɫ] is more rounded, but it's probably not distinctive because [ɡ̥oʊtˀ] sounds equally correct. [ɡ̥əʊt] would sound British to me – iopq Nov 26 '23 at 09:12
  • Interesting about roll being in the dole class, maybe I'm pronouncing the word as a spelling pronunciation – iopq Nov 26 '23 at 09:15
  • Does comparing with the regional clips and IPA for cold, holy, not to mention full, wool, toe, all, long suggest some values here? – tchrist Dec 27 '23 at 16:35
  • A lot of the [ɑ] are clearly rounded, making them [ɒ] – iopq Dec 31 '23 at 10:22
  • For example, Chicago's all was not [ɑːɫ], but [ɒɫ] – iopq Dec 31 '23 at 10:26

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