Only in Dioula 1
Shared sounds 38
What this means for learners
Dioula and Fɔn share 38 sounds — roughly 90% of Fɔn's inventory overlaps with Dioula. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 4 sounds found only in Fɔn represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Dioula 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, Dioula has 1 sound not used in Fɔn. Native Fɔn speakers learning Dioula 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.