Languages without tense ???

[j4mes_bond25]

I would like to know if there are any languages in the world in which the only existing tense is the present tense? I mean the language which doesn't possess any past or future tense.

[BobK]

I seem to remember there is at least one - it could be Vietnamese: wait for Tdol to reply. Or maybe one of the American Indian languages...

b

[Tdol]

I've read that Chinese has no tense and expresses time through adverbs, etc. Whorf says that there is a Native American language where verbs express relationships through distance, though I presume that you're looking for a language where there are no changes.

I don't know about Vietnamese, though in Khmer there are no actual tenses, but they do have past and future markers, though these don't have to be used, so they can just use the present, though, again, I doubt that this will satisfy as they can mark time verbally.

[hector51]

hi,I'm Vietnamese

actually,there is no tense in our language,when we want to express something in the past,the present or the future we just use the same sentence (the adverb of time is necessary to make the sentence easier to understand,but in some case,it's optional)so you just need to learn every words and combine them to make a sentence,there is no tense,very easy,but it's a little bit hard to pronounce !

hope it helps!

[Siregar]

Indonesian also doesn't have tenses.

[JJM Ballantyne]

And English only has two true tenses: past and present.