Dialect Distinctions

As Travis has pointed out; Wiki-mirrors often have different info to the page they copied. They tend to preserve out-of-date versions. The mirror in question is probably preserving something that the editors at Wikipedia have rejected for lack of any reliable source.

A lot of the oa words from A through O in the alphabet:

croak- ME origin unc.
goat- OE gát
loaf- OE hláf
load- OE lád
loam- OE lám
loan- adopted from ON, lán
loathe- OE láþian
moat- adopted in ME from OF mote
coat- adopted in ME from OF cote
coal- OE col (possible lengthening?)
coarse- different form of course
coast- adopted in ME from OF coste
goad- OE gád
goal- origin unc.
groan- OE gránian
groat- adopted from Middle Dutch groot
hoar- OE hár
hoard- OE hordian
boar- OE bár
board- OE bord
boast- ME bost
boat- OE bát
coach- F coche
foal- OE fola (poss. lengthening?)
foam- OE fæ:man (apparently different from of word superseded it)
float- OE flotian (poss. lengthening?)
oak- OE ác
oar- OE ár
oast- OE ást
oat- OE áte
oath- OE áþ

Seems pretty consistent to me. Most from OE long A. But if these words have /o@/, then how did <oCe> words get the monophthong /o:/?? Shouldn't the original long vowel have the monophthong? I can see OE
/{A/ -> /e@/ (<ea>), but I can't see /A:/ -> /O:/ -> /o@/.

I don't know about the second half of the alphabet. I know I left a few out from the first half of the alphabet. What does everybody think??

Ok- here is a lot of <oCe> words & their origins from A-O in the alphabet-

bode- OE bodian
bone- OE bán
bore- OE borian
choke- ?OE céocian
chore- varinat of char
chrome- Fr chrome
close- Fr clos
clothe- OE cláþian
code- Fr code
cole- OE cál
cone- Fr cône
cope- OE cápe
cove- OE cofa
crone- prob. from ONormFr carogne
dole- OE dál
dome- Fr dome
dote- ME doten
drove- OE dráf
fore- OE fore
globe- Fr globe
gnome- Fr gnome
gore- OE gor
grope- OE grápian
grove- OE gráf
hole- OE hol
home- hám
hope- OE hopa
hose- OE hosa
joke- adopted from Latin jocus
lobe- adpoted from Latin lobus
lore- OE lár
mode- Fr mode
mole- OE mál
more- OE more
node- adopted from Latin nódus
nose- OE nosu
note- OE notu
ode- Fr ode
ore- OE ár

There is much more variability in the origins of these spellings. There seems to be no actual reason some words have <oa> & others have <oCe>. So, it seems the only way the distinction was created was through spelling pronunciation.