courier/Curia
In "Accents of English" Wells mentions that these two words don't rhyme for him, with 'Curia' having the vowel of CURE in the first syllable, and 'courier' the vowel of FOOT (["kUrI.@] vs. ["kjU@.rI.@]). For me, they have the same vowel, and differ only in presence of [j] in the first syllable and of r-colouring in the last
courier [k3`.r/i.@`]
Curia ["kj3`.r/i.6]
How do these differ in your accents? Are there any accents in which they are homophones?
I myself have:
courier ["k_hR=:i:R=:]
Curia ["k_hjR=:i:@:]
I would say that what i have is effectively the same as what you have except with a different underlying phonology being present.
Those words use the same vowel in my accent:
courier ["k_h3`i@`]
Curia ["k_hj3`i@]
As far as RP goes, the Cambridge Online Dictionary gives the pronunciation as /"kUri@/, which I think would make it the only word in that dialect to use /Ur/.
<<which I think would make it the only word in that dialect to use /Ur/. >>
I've heard RP speakers use /Ur/ for the name of my native country as well: Uruguay (although, granted, there are other possibilities).
I'd be like Wells except for the fact that my CURE vowel seems to have disintergrated thus I have the FOOT vowel for "courier" and the GOOSE vowel for "Curia".