Only in SHUSWAP 24
What this means for learners
SHUSWAP and Nootka share 20 sounds — roughly 43% of Nootka's inventory overlaps with SHUSWAP. 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 Nootka represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for SHUSWAP 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, SHUSWAP has 24 sounds not used in Nootka. Native Nootka speakers learning SHUSWAP 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.