What this means for learners
Delaware and Lahu share 16 sounds — roughly 35% of Lahu's inventory overlaps with Delaware. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 30 sounds found only in Lahu represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Delaware 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, Delaware has 23 sounds not used in Lahu. Native Lahu speakers learning Delaware 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.