Only in Somali 36
What this means for learners
Somali and Kabardian share 16 sounds — roughly 25% of Kabardian's inventory overlaps with Somali. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 47 sounds found only in Kabardian represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Somali 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, Somali has 36 sounds not used in Kabardian. Native Kabardian speakers learning Somali 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.