This question came about when I was discussing an oddity of English language on Twitter. I noted in passing that both Malay and Tagalog (often spoken in the Philippines) don’t have past tenses. Nor do a lot of tropical languages.
This got me wondering: Does tropical weather affect how we perceive time so much that it changes the need or desire to develop tenses?
Some of these languages don’t have future tenses either. It would be like speaking English this way: “Yesterday, I go to the store. Today I go to the store. Tomorrow I go to the store.” The only time markers are the actual words for the days.
I’ve been living in Malaysia for seven years now. When you live in a place without seasons, days, weeks and months just fly away. The sense of urgency is gone. (Note, I also lived in Namibia, and there “Africa Time” is a common expression for the lack of concern about urgency or timeliness.)
For those who can’t place Malaysia on a map (I’ve met a few) look at Australia. Go up the left side and keep going. You’ll pass through Jakarta and hit Singapore. Singapore is an island just off of the southern tip of the Malay peninsula.
I used to keep a travel blog called Vicarious Vistas. It was the first site that I attempted to port over to WordPress and I was frustrated by the process so it remains far from complete. There’s a shell of it still alive – basically just a front page – that you can see 
Recently, I’ve been contemplating renewing the site – digging up the old content and posting it along with newer content from my year living in South Africa and, more recently, Malaysia.
