巴西某部落不识“年月”只分“昼夜”

　　研究人员发现，巴西亚马逊丛林中有一个名叫阿莫达瓦的部落，那里的人没有时间概念。在他们的语言中没有“时间”、“星期”、“月”和“年”等词语，只区分白天、黑夜、旱季和雨季。该部落的人们也没有年龄，而是根据每个人所处的生长阶段和在部落中的地位不断变换名字。比如，一个孩子长到一定阶段后就要换一个名字，他原来的名字就由新出生的小孩继续沿用。研究人员表示，这一发现说明时间并不是全球人们通用的一个计时概念；阿莫达瓦部落的人们不像我们这样受时间的负累，他们享受的是自由的生活。

　　An Amazonian tribe has been discovered that has no concept of time or dates, scientists have said。

　　An Amazonian tribe has been discovered that has no concept of time or dates, scientists have said。

　　Professor Chris Sinha, of the University of Portsmouth, led theresearch which found that the Amondawa people of Brazil do not even havewords for "time", "week", "month" or "year"。

　　In his study, published in the journal Language and Cognition, heargues that it is the first time scientists have been able to prove timeis not a deeply entrenched universal human concept, as previouslythought。

　　Prof Sinha said: "For the Amondawa, time does not exist in the sameway as it does for us. We can now say without doubt that there is atleast one language and culture which does not have a concept of time assomething that can be measured, counted or talked about in the abstract。

　　"This doesn't mean that the Amondawa are 'people outside time', butthey live in a world of events, rather than seeing events as beingembedded in time."

　　Team members including linguist Wany Sampaio and anthropologistVera da Silva Sinha, spent eight weeks with the Amondawa researching howtheir language conveys concepts like "next week" or "last year"。

　　There were no words for such concepts, only divisions of day andnight and rainy and dry seasons. They also found nobody in the communityhad an age. Instead, they change their names to reflect their lifestage and position within their society. For example a little child willgive up their name to a newborn sibling and take on a new one。

　　Prof Sinha said: "We have so many metaphors for time and itspassing - we think of time as a 'thing' - we say 'the weekend is nearlygone', 'she's coming up to her exams', 'I haven't got the time', and soon, and we think such statements are objective, but they aren't. We'vecreated these metaphors and they have become the way we think。

　　"The Amondawa don't talk like this and don't think like this,unless they learn another language. For these fortunate people timeisn't money, they aren't racing against the clock to complete anything,and nobody is discussing next week or next year; they don't even havewords for 'week', 'month' or 'year'. You could say they enjoy a certainfreedom."

　　First contacted by the outside world in 1986, the Amondawa continuetheir traditional way of life, hunting, fishing and growing crops. Butnow along with modern trappings such as electricity and television, theyhave gained the Portuguese language, putting their own language underthreat of extinction。