Only in Lithuanian 43
What this means for learners
Lithuanian and Kota share 17 sounds — roughly 28% of Kota's inventory overlaps with Lithuanian. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 24 sounds found only in Kota represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Lithuanian 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, Lithuanian has 43 sounds not used in Kota. Native Kota speakers learning Lithuanian 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.