What this means for learners
MUMUYE and Yao share 18 sounds — roughly 37% of Yao's inventory overlaps with MUMUYE. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 31 sounds found only in Yao represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for MUMUYE 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, MUMUYE has 16 sounds not used in Yao. Native Yao speakers learning MUMUYE 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.