IPA phoneme \ɒ\

This phonetics article is valid in most of the English speaking world. For a specific article for British English and Received Pronunciation see **Phoneme /ɒ/ in Received Pronunciation**. For American English see **Phoneme /ɑː/ in General American** and **Phoneme /ɔː/ in General American**.

In Received Pronunciation, the IPA phonetic symbol **/ɒ/** corresponds to the vowel sound in words like "lot", "stop", "cloth", "long", "sorry" and "forest".

In General American "lot", "stop" and "sorry" are normally pronounced with /ɑː/; "cloth", "long" and "forest" are pronounced with /ɔː/.

There are dictionaries of American English (such as Random House Dictionary) that actually use /ɒ/ as it is explained in this article: for "lot" and "stop", but not for "cloth" and "long" /lɒt, stɒp, klɔːθ, lɔːŋ/, and their actual meaning is /lɑːt, stɑːp, klɔːθ, lɔːŋ/. "Sorry" and "forest" are normally pronounced /sɑːriː/ and /fɔːrɪst/. Random House Dictionary represents them as /ˈsɒri, ˈsɔri/ and /ˈfɔrɪst, ˈfɒrɪst/, with the preferred pronunciations swapped.

The remainder of this article is valid both for Received Pronunciation and General American (i.e. "lot" and "stop" are documented, "cloth" and "long", are not). See Phoneme /ɒ/ in Received Pronunciation and Phoneme /ɑː/ in General American for more examples. The cases of "sorry" and "forest" are also explained in this article.

In this wiki if the symbol /ɒ/ is used and no equivalence to General American is given, it must be understood to be read as /ɒ,*BrE* ɑː*AmE*/.

## Common words

Some common words which practice the pronunciation of **/ɒ/** include the following:

* with "**o**": body, box, f**o**llow, got, hot, involve, job, lot, model, **o**bvious, policy, possible, probably, problem, product, shop, stop, top
* with "**a**": quality, restaur**a**nt, wad, wander, want, wash, watch

## Spelling

/ɒ/ is always followed by one or more consonants. In derived words a single consonant is usually doubled (hop, hopping; rot, rotten).

 /əʊ/ | local, open, social

## /ɒr/

*See Decoding exercises: "orV" and "orrV"*

According to Wikipedia only 5 words are pronounced /ɑːr/ in General American and /ɒr/ in Received Pronunciation: "borrow", "sorrow", "sorry", "tomorrow" and "morrow". Some dictionaries exclude "tomorrow" and "morrow" from the list. In the table below we show these 5 words, and also "foreign" and "orange" which most dictionaries consider to be /ɒr,*BrE* ɔr*AmE*/.

In all other cases /ɒr/*BrE* is /ɔːr/*AmE*. However these words are pronounced /ɑːr/ in regional American English (parts of the East Coast, including New York City, Long Island, northern New Jersey, Philadelphia, Rhode Island, and the Carolinas).

* with "**o**": foreign, forest, h**o**rror, orange
* with "**a**": w**a**rrant, w**a**rranty
* with "**au**": laurel

## References

1. ↑ See for example Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Dictionary.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Wikipedia, English-language vowel changes before historic /r/ § Mergers of /ɒr-/ and /ɔːr-/. Retreived 13 November 2017.

## See also

* Lexical sets
* Pronunciation exercises: /ɒ/ vs /ɔː/
* Pronunciation exercises: /əʊ/ vs /ɒ/
* Pronunciation exercises: /ʌ/ vs /ɒ/

## External links

* British Library, Vowel sounds of Received Pronunciation