Only in Santali 34
What this means for learners
Santali and Bhumij share 23 sounds — roughly 40% of Bhumij's inventory overlaps with Santali. 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 Bhumij represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Santali 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, Santali has 34 sounds not used in Bhumij. Native Bhumij speakers learning Santali 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.