substituted with the native sounds "t"/"r"/"l", "p", and "w"/"k", respectively. In Mexico, many speakers substitute "g" for syllable-initial "w". That is largely because Spanish lacks a /w/ phoneme. The phone [w] is present in Spanish not as an independent consonantal phoneme but as a variant of the vowel /u/ and the consonant /g/ when it is before a /u/ or /o/. The use of "g" in place of "w" is considered by Yaqui speakers as an influence from Spanish and not standard Yaqui usage, even in Mexico. Glottal stops There is at least one glottal stop, which is phonemic. There also appears to be a "fainter" glottal stop that is sometimes used between vowels but with apparently little predictability. Whether it is phonemic or not is still unclear. Sound symbolism Sound symbolism is present in Yaqui. For example, a word with the phoneme /l/ in it may be pronounced normally, to denote approval from the speaker, or with /r/ replacing the /l/, to denote disapproval or disfavor on the part of the speaker. Either form is correct. Devoicing Devoicing occurs at the ends of phrases. That is especially notable with the phoneme /m/ and with vowels. Yaqui speech often sounds "breathy" to English-speakers. Gestures One word, laute, has two contradictory meanings in translation into English: "quickly" and "slowly". (Incidentally, English has similar words of contrasting meanings: mercurial, which can mean either "unhesitating" or "scatter-brained", and quite which can mean "very" or "a little".) Laute is often accompanied with a quick or slow open-handed movement to indicate the meaning, or it could be translated as "at a different speed" and requires a hand gesture to indicate the nature of the difference when that is needed for clarification.) Grammar Syntax Yaqui word order is generally subject–object–verb. The object of a sentence is suffixed with "-ta". Word order structures Subject object The following sentences display a variation of the language's structure and the forms allowed. In the following example, we can see an S and an O. This structure of SO is allowable due to a common feature among languages— the verb/ copula to be. 'He' is the subject in this example and since 'he' shows no variation in positioning in the sentence, there will not be further explanation for it. The object in this example 'child' has the possessor 'him' preceding to show ownership, but what is being possessed by 'him' is