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Here is the pronunciation guide from Oxford American English dictionary:

Some speakers only use the sound /ɔ/ when it is followed by /r/ (as in horse /hɔrs/) and use /ɑ/ in all other words that are shown with /ɔ/ in this dictionary, so that they pronounce both caught and cot as /kɑt/.

It means that ɔɪ will become ɑɪ . Boy will be pronounced /bɑɪ/, choice will be pronounced /tʃɑɪs/.

Could anyone confirm this is the actual pronunciation of the people with cot/caught merger? Or do they just keep /bɔɪ/ and /tʃɔɪs/?

If /bɑɪ/ is used, will it be easy to distinguish with buy /baɪ/ ?

PS: I am interested in American English by Oxford dictionary. But I get confused with their guide as mentioned in my question. Will boy be pronounced /bɑɪ/ according to their guide ? If a particular region must be specified, please take a US region with cot caught merger to see how they pronounce boy, choice... I want to make sure that /bɑɪ/ pronunciation is practical and recognized by most of listeners

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    "the people with cot/caught merger" aren't a homogenous group: it's found in Scotland and other parts of the British Isles, parts of the US and Canada, and elsewhere. Are you interested in a particular dialect/region? You could start with the chart here.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Jan 17, 2023 at 10:57
  • I am interested in American English by Oxford dictionary. But I get confused with their guide as mentioned in my question. Will boy be pronounced /bɑɪ/ according to their guide ? If a particular region must be specified, let's take a US region with cot caught merger to see how they pronounce boy, choice... I want to make sure that /bɑɪ/ pronunciation is practical and recognized by most of listeners
    – Nam N
    Commented Jan 17, 2023 at 11:28
  • Boy pronounced as bäi is Irish English (from Munster region or North Dublin).
    – AHL V AHLUHV ALLofOLIVE
    Commented Jun 11 at 22:15
  • I think this is a duplicate of this question, but my answer has no upvotes so I can't mark this as a duplicate.
    – alphabet
    Commented Jun 12 at 5:13

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Oxford Dictionary is only talking about the phoneme /ɔ/, and not the phoneme /ɔɪ/. These are two different phonemes, and they probably didn't realize they were being ambiguous when they wrote their pronunciation guide. To American English ears, /bɑɪ/ sounds like buy and not /bɔɪ/. If you pronounce boy as /bɑɪ/, you will probably be misunderstood.

I can't say for sure that there isn't some region of the United States where they pronounce boy as /bɑɪ/, but certainly in nearly all the accents with the COT-CAUGHT merger that I've run into, boy pronounced something like /bɔɪ/.

The Wikipedia International Phonetic Alphabet Chart gives /ɔɪ/ or /oɪ/ for the pronunciation of the phoneme /ɔɪ/ in nearly all the American dialects they list, and don't list any dialects where it's pronounced /ɑɪ/. So if you want to avoid the phone [ɔ] altogether, you could pronounce horse as /hors/ and boy as /boɪ/.

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  • It's confusing, they say "Some speakers only use the sound /ɔ/ when it is followed by /r/ (as in horse /hɔrs/)". It means that they understand ɔr as 2 different phonemes, not a phoneme. So, the same for ɔɪ - they are 2 different phonemes, not a phoneme. Anyways, thanks for your clarification, boy should be pronounced /bɔɪ/, not /bɑɪ/
    – Nam N
    Commented Jan 17, 2023 at 12:31
  • @NamN Probably boy, bore, and boat have the same syllabic nucleus: /o/.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Jan 17, 2023 at 13:50
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    @Nam N: In the standard analysis of American English, /ɔɪ/ is considered a single phoneme, which is a diphthong (so there are two symbols), while /ɔr/ is often considered as two phonemes. (Not that you could tell this from their guide to pronunciation.)
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Jan 17, 2023 at 13:52

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