# Amazon tribe with no abstract concept of TIME. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 20, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569 "2011-05-20T14:55:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/1 "2011-05-20T14:55:14Z")
- An Amazonian tribe has no abstract concept of time, say researchers. The Amondawa lacks the linguistic structures that relate time and space - as in our idea of, for example, “working through the night”. The study, in Language and Cognition, shows that while the Amondawa recognise events occuring in time, it does not exist as a separate concept.\* From [BBC.](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13452711) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/2 "2011-05-20T16:48:56Z")
That’s the headline, but the article itself suggests that they do, just embedded into the langauge in a very unusual way. ‘“We’re really not saying these are a ‘people without time’ or ‘outside time’,” said Chris Sinha, a professor of psychology of language at the University of Portsmouth. “Amondawa people, like any other people, can talk about events and sequences of events,” he told BBC News.’ ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/3 "2011-05-20T17:09:33Z")
But they at least get Newsweek, surely. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/4 "2011-05-20T17:10:51Z")
Boy, I bet that’s the last time the Amondawa show up late for an interview. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/5 "2011-05-20T17:27:25Z")
Mexican culture has no concept of time, either, but you don’t see me crowing about it. in b4 whoosh ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/6 "2011-05-20T17:28:57Z")
BBC? Heh. Margaret Mead was fooled, too. ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/7 "2011-05-20T20:00:33Z")
Somewhere, perhaps Slate, someone wrote that we must be in the summer news doldrums because there is yet another store about a tribe with no concept of time. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/8 "2011-05-20T20:40:38Z")
In my admittedly limited experience, I’ve found that pretty much every culture except for northern European and some Asian cultures pay any attention to being on time. ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/9 "2011-05-20T20:48:52Z")
There’s a difference between sequencing of events and ‘four years ago’. I think that there’s a knee jerk reaction to this kind of linguistic study because it sounds racist, lingo-centric, or judgmental. I think that a lack of vocabulary can hurt your ability to build concepts, but it doesn’t mean you don’t understand the concept of the original vocabulary. I can’t imagine any culture that doesn’t have _some_ kind of calendar. ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/10 "2011-05-20T23:36:27Z")
Nepal, 1981. I’m alone staying at a very small two room inn run by two local girls about 18 years of age in the Mt. Everest area. The girls speak conversational English pretty well, but they seem to have little concept of “clock-time”. There is a sign that says “Baths 5 Repees”. Seeing how I hadn’t showered for 3 weeks, it sounded like a good idea! I had a whole day to kill as I was supposed to stay at the altitude I was at to acclimate before going higher. Yak dung was the only fuel to burn to heat the water because we were at about 13,000’ and there weren’t any trees around. I asked the girls how long it would take to heat the water. “An hour?, two hours?” (I wanted to take a hike, but didn’t want to be gone too long.), they just looked at each other and didn’t seem to know how to respond. “Do you know what I mean by “an hour”?” “No”, they replied. I also wanted to know how long the shower would last. I didn’t want to be all soaped up and have the water stop, but they just didn’t seem to understand, “How many minutes does the shower last?” Neither one had been to the capital, Kathmandu and they said they rarely go to the rather large town of Namcha Bazaar which is about a three days walk away. As far as the concept of “time” goes for them, anything beyond, morning, afternoon, evening and night didn’t seem to exist. ---
**Author:** ![Walther\_Ego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8dc957/32.png) [@Walther\_Ego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walther_Ego)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/11 "2011-05-21T08:43:30Z")
Ok so people who hang around at Amazon all day long have no sense of time, but how is it different from people who hang around at SDMB? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/12 "2011-05-21T08:48:21Z")
> [@Mangosteen](#): > > Neither one had been to the capital, Kathmandu and they said they rarely go to the rather large town of Namcha Bazaar which is about a three days walk away. As far as the concept of “time” goes for them, anything beyond, morning, afternoon, evening and night didn’t seem to exist. I’ve heard it said that’s how things used to be for most people before industrialization in general and trains in particular: there might be some local way to mark specific points in the day (such as the bells tolling Angelus to mark noon), but the day was just divided in chunks. But if the train left at 11:53, going to the station “noonish” suddenly wasn’t good enough, thus leading to the generalization of watches and to a concept of timekeeping (not of time per se) where the chunks are smaller. The example from the article is… off for me. I’m not sure whether they picked it specifically because it includes the word “through”, which can be used both to speak about time and about space, but in Spanish that same sentence would be “trabajar toda la noche”, “work all night” - no “relationship between space and time” there. Mind you, newspaper articles about science where the reporter doesn’t understand what he’s talking about, therefore can’t explain it well, aren’t exactly new. ---
**Author:** ![Ostrya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/35a633/32.png) [@Ostrya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ostrya)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/13 "2011-05-21T09:28:05Z")
> [@indian](#): > > - > > An Amazonian tribe has no abstract concept of Time, say researchers. They probably read Newsweek. ---
**Author:** ![Indian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@Indian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indian)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/14 "2011-05-21T09:30:25Z")
> [@the lone cashew](#): > > They probably read Newsweek. Yes, see post #3 ---
**Author:** ![Ostrya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/35a633/32.png) [@Ostrya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ostrya)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/15 "2011-05-21T09:38:34Z")
:smack: Bosstone! I’ll get you for this! ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/16 "2011-05-23T00:54:49Z")
Somewhere in the universe, somebody is probably mocking Earth’s humans for having no grasp of the fourth through tenth spatial dimensions. ---
**Author:** ![YaraMateo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/58f4c7/32.png) [@YaraMateo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YaraMateo)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/17 "2011-05-23T03:15:26Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I’ve heard it said that’s how things used to be for most people before industrialization in general and trains in particular: there might be some local way to mark specific points in the day (such as the bells tolling Angelus to mark noon), but the day was just divided in chunks. But if the train left at 11:53, going to the station “noonish” suddenly wasn’t good enough, thus leading to the generalization of watches and to a concept of timekeeping (not of time per se) where the chunks are smaller. > > The example from the article is… off for me. I’m not sure whether they picked it specifically because it includes the word “through”, which can be used both to speak about time and about space, but in Spanish that same sentence would be “trabajar toda la noche”, “work all night” - no “relationship between space and time” there. Mind you, newspaper articles about science where the reporter doesn’t understand what he’s talking about, therefore can’t explain it well, aren’t exactly new. I’ve noticed people have seasonal jobs, tend to be like this in the off season. They don’t keep track or even what day of the week it is when they’re not working. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/18 "2011-05-23T14:40:05Z")
Yeah, I remember reading once years back about such a thing; supposedly, their language had no way to express “past” or “future”. If you wanted to say “he will jump”, the closest you could get would be “I expect jumping.” ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/19 "2011-05-23T15:31:21Z")
> [@Walther\_Ego](#): > > Ok so people who hang around at Amazon all day long have no sense of time, but how is it different from people who hang around at SDMB? We’re cool with time. We just have no concept of space. For example, I keep hearing that there’s some “real world” in space beyond my monitor, but I have no concept of it. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569/20 "2011-05-23T19:19:42Z")
I remember reading that a couple of Amazonian tribes (the Yancos and Aimores) had no numbers above three. Was this true or were the people investigating them wrong? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-tribe-with-no-abstract-concept-of-time/582569.md?page=2)