Only in Telugu 39
What this means for learners
Telugu and Bhumij share 29 sounds — roughly 43% of Bhumij's inventory overlaps with Telugu. Shared sounds are ones a speaker already knows from their native language and will generally produce and perceive accurately without explicit training.
The 25 sounds found only in Bhumij represent the greatest pronunciation challenge for Telugu 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, Telugu has 39 sounds not used in Bhumij. Native Bhumij speakers learning Telugu 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.