Shared sounds 36
What this means for learners
Sanskrit and Awadhi share 36 sounds — roughly 80% of Awadhi's inventory overlaps with Sanskrit. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 9 sounds found only in Awadhi represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Sanskrit 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, Sanskrit has 9 sounds not used in Awadhi. Native Awadhi speakers learning Sanskrit 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.