Only in Punjabi 42
What this means for learners
Punjabi and Urdu share 31 sounds — roughly 42% of Urdu's inventory overlaps with Punjabi. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 27 sounds found only in Urdu represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Punjabi 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, Punjabi has 42 sounds not used in Urdu. Native Urdu speakers learning Punjabi 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.