Shared sounds 34
What this means for learners
Kumauni and Oriya share 34 sounds — roughly 79% of Oriya's inventory overlaps with Kumauni. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 9 sounds found only in Oriya represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Kumauni 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, Kumauni has 8 sounds not used in Oriya. Native Oriya speakers learning Kumauni 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.