The Amondawa, a small Amazonian tribe, seem to live in a very different way from most of us. Their language doesn’t have a word for “time.” No months, years, and way to talk about ages in the way we do. People move through life marked by stages or roles, not by dates.Researchers say this doesn’t mean the tribe can’t understand events happening one after another. They clearly can. But time, as a separate concept, seems absent. It’s not something that exists in the abstract for the Amondawa.

No clocks, no years: How the Amondawa live by life stages

The Amondawa first came to outside attention in 1986. Researchers from the University of Portsmouth and the Federal University of Rondonia in Brazil began studying the language and culture. Chris Sinha, a psychology of language professor, explains that it’s not about being “without time.”“They can talk about events,” he reportedly says. “It’s just that time doesn’t exist independently. It doesn’t float above the events.”In daily life, there’s no mapping between events and abstract periods like weeks or months. They don’t refer to ages but to stages of life or achievements. It appears that the tribe’s focus is firmly on events themselves, not on a timeline that stretches beyond them.

Amondawa don’t see time as other people do

One of the study’s more surprising findings is the lack of “spatial mapping” of time. In many languages, we talk about the future as ahead, the past as behind. The Amondawa don’t. Words that describe movement through space are used literally, for rivers, trees, hills, and so on, not for moments in time.Researchers say this might be linked to the absence of calendars or clocks. Without time technology, the concept doesn’t naturally develop. Some experts note the limited number system may play a role, too. Not everyone agrees with the findings. Pierre Pica, a linguist at CNRS in France, says the study is interesting but cautions against overinterpreting it. Absolute spatial terms, like “upstream” or “downstream,” are common in small societies and don’t easily translate into abstract concepts like time.“It doesn’t prove the mapping hypothesis is wrong,” he says. “It just doesn’t appear in everyday language.”

Amondawa learning new time concepts as Portuguese spreads

The Amondawa are increasingly exposed to Portuguese. Researchers report that they can learn to use temporal concepts from other languages without trouble. It seems that abstract time isn’t beyond their cognitive ability, which is just not part of the culture’s daily practice.The team hopes to continue studying the language before traditional knowledge disappears. As more people adopt calendars and clocks, the original way of thinking about events may vanish.