A study examined use of passive and antipassive constructions in the spontaneous utterances and picture comprehension responses of young speakers of Quiche Mayan, aged 1-5. This usage was compared with use of similar constructions in English-speaking children. Quiche-speakers' usage was found to be precocious in comparison with English-speakers' usage in three senses: (1) Quiche children use non-active sentences much more frequently in daily conversations, reflecting the high frequency of these sentences in adult Quiche and suggesting that there is nothing inherently more difficult about these constructions; (2) Quiche children show early symmetry in their acquisition of the passive and antipassive voices, directly contradicting acquisition theories that appeal to canonical linking rules and noun-phrase-movement to explain late acquisition of passives in English; and (3) Quiche children are precocious in their production and comprehension of nonactional verbs in nonactive voices, perhaps reflecting a little-understood aspect of the structure of the adult language. (MSE)