What this means for learners
Abipon and Yao share 14 sounds — roughly 29% of Yao's inventory overlaps with Abipon. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 35 sounds found only in Yao represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Abipon speakers. The adult brain tends to map unfamiliar sounds onto the closest native equivalent — a process that produces the characteristic "accent" of a second-language speaker. Learning to hear and produce these sounds as distinct requires focused ear training, not just repetition.
Conversely, Abipon has 9 sounds not used in Yao. Native Yao speakers learning Abipon will face the mirror-image challenge with these sounds.
Phoneme inventories from PHOIBLE. Data reflects one documented inventory per language; some variation exists across dialects and sources.