Only in EYAK 39
What this means for learners
EYAK and Ket share 6 sounds — roughly 13% of Ket's inventory overlaps with EYAK. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 26 sounds found only in Ket represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for EYAK 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, EYAK has 39 sounds not used in Ket. Native Ket speakers learning EYAK 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.