The Sicilian language has no future tenses. I do not know if there are other languages in the world without future tenses. Those I have studied so far all contain future tenses. Even Latin, from which Sicilian comes, has future tenses. As for Sicilian, even the term ‘future’ does not have a corresponding word which it can be translated into.
To express a future idea we use adverbs, nouns, and verbs, like tomorrow, next week, and so on plus the present tense.
In the proverb mentioned in the epigraph, the idea of the future is given by the verb ”come”. It is an action verb, which unlike static verbs conveys the idea of movement and becoming.
This Sicilian proverb has an optimistic idea of life. It tells us not to worry about the morrow because the time to come is better than now.
Speaking of time, I cannot help but mention the great philosopher Emanuel Kant. For him, neither space nor time exists. They are creation of the human mind. Indeed, in the infinite universe it is always now!
Ettore Grillo, author of these books:
– November 2: The Day of the Dead in Sicily (English edition)
– A Hidden Sicilian History (English edition)
– The Vibrations of Words (English edition)
– Travels of the Mind (English edition)
– Una Storia Siciliana Nascosta (edizione in lingua italiana)
– Viaggi della Mente (edizione in lingua italiana)
Ettore Grillo's Blog and Books 