Shared sounds 33
What this means for learners
Squamish and Salish share 33 sounds — roughly 77% of Salish's inventory overlaps with Squamish. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 10 sounds found only in Salish represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Squamish 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, Squamish has 4 sounds not used in Salish. Native Salish speakers learning Squamish 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.