What this means for learners
MBUM and Tiv share 26 sounds — roughly 65% of Tiv's inventory overlaps with MBUM. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 14 sounds found only in Tiv represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for MBUM 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, MBUM has 12 sounds not used in Tiv. Native Tiv speakers learning MBUM 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.