What this means for learners
Logbara and Nupe share 23 sounds — roughly 55% of Nupe's inventory overlaps with Logbara. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 15 sounds found only in Nupe represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Logbara 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, Logbara has 19 sounds not used in Nupe. Native Nupe speakers learning Logbara 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.