Murrinh-patha vs Balinese
Sound inventory comparison
What this means for learners
Murrinh-patha and Balinese share 11 sounds — roughly 39% of Balinese's inventory overlaps with Murrinh-patha. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 13 sounds found only in Balinese represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Murrinh-patha 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, Murrinh-patha has 17 sounds not used in Balinese. Native Balinese speakers learning Murrinh-patha 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.