Only in Kurukh 38
What this means for learners
Kurukh and Maithili share 30 sounds — roughly 44% of Maithili's inventory overlaps with Kurukh. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 21 sounds found only in Maithili represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Kurukh 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, Kurukh has 38 sounds not used in Maithili. Native Maithili speakers learning Kurukh 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.