Talk:African time

Polychronic time in Africa?

The term "Africa(n) time" and all the negativity (or positivity?) about it conveys as much about the people saying it as about what they are referring to. It seems to deserve an article, but I'm surprised that the article does not consider polychronicity as a factor in African time references and systems. Couldn't part of the Western and Westernized exasperation with "African time" (or for that matter, attitudes that it's great to be laid back) have to do not with slowness, but with, perhaps, not understanding that the cultures may tend to be "polychronic"? That is considered in discussing "slower" time references in some other world regions.--A12n (talk) 21:22, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I've added some info on this, as well as some other references. I think it is very important to see "African time" in a global context and not just as how African approaches to time might vary from Western ones. So a lot more could be done with this article and related ones.--A12n (talk) 08:30, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Not just africa

While I object the "africa" reference, I object the deletion or at least this article can be integrated to other article that discuss similar concept. In other continent, such mentality about punctuality is also observed, such as among some southeast asian countries where I live. Indonesian call it, freely translated, "rubber time". I read also it happened too in certain Caribbean and Latin America regions. I agree with generalisation of the topic. Kembangraps (talk) 01:12, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Merge

Wikipedia should certainly address the racist term, given its currency, but we don't need two separate articles on the same idea.

Ngram shows that Colored People's Time shouldn't exist: "CP Time" is much more common and, all things considered, is probably the wp:common wp:english name (given that "African time" is also going to include "South African time" and generic descriptions of African history and people's "time in Africa). That said, scrolling through the Google Books search, "African time" really does seem to generally be a reference to this ethnic slur. I'm for merging the pages here, including CP Time in the lead as the American form, and addressing the rest in a #Name section. — LlywelynII 21:45, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

• At least one support was voiced in 2011 over at Talk:Colored People's Time. — LlywelynII 21:47, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
• Also support, as they are the same underlying concept, and I placed the tag on both articles. But, a merge into a third page may work also. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 04:19, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

The way this article and the CP time article is currently expressed, i don't think they're similar. it's more like CP time seems similar to the negative parts of African time (or polycronicity?), but has no parallel to the neutral or positive parts. this might be an argument against keeping the Name paragraph as it is, and against merge or making the expressions synonymous. Ingvald (talk) 23:38, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

'Within Britain, African time' / 'black people's time'

This sounds like racist assumptions / views embedded in an article as a vehicle for expressing personal prejudices. I was born and have lived in Britain for nearly 60 years and have never heard either of these expressions. I would expect them to have been used by the likes of Alf Garnett, and real-life versions of the same stereotype. But, 'black people's time'? Really? Where is the 'white people's time' article? 'Yellow people's time'? 'Light brown people's time'? These are views of a dying era. I am not against using such expressions with suitable expansion on the social context and views of the time, but to present them as fact rather than societal peculiarities is not sound. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.130.102.253 (talk) 22:10, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

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Comment

Going back to 'before the railways' in Europe was there a similar attitude towards time? 193.132.104.10 (talk) 15:39, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

About this page

The concepts discussed on this page are actually fairly redundant, and boil down to "This concept exists in cultures independent of Africa" and "This page should be merged". And a bot message. That's why the discussions on this page should be merged into two sections. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 04:26, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

This should be merged to Time management.

This is just a slogan nothing importaint and should just be merged with Time management. Mere passing mention. CaribDigita (talk) 01:53, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Merge proposal 2025

The proposal to merge Colored people's time to here seems reasonable, given the overlap. There was some support for this back in 2019, with one objection. While there are differences, these can be discussion on the page, perhaps with a separate section for Colored people's time, with a note of its pejorative tone. Klbrain (talk) 15:03, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

  Y Merge completed Klbrain (talk) 12:38, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Time in Ethiopia and in Swahili language etc.

Another topic should be mentioned, shortly described in Time in Ethiopia. The Swahili language does the same, see e.g. Swahili time is benchmarked at 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., meaning Swahili clocks look like…

See also these discussions: Which countries have an inverted clock format where 'mid night' is 6 o'clock and morning sunrise is usually around 12 o' clock? and “TIL in Swahili time the day starts at 6 am. Due to being on the equator, Swahili speakers have nearly perfect 12-hour days & nights. The clock starts with a 12 on bottom and then counts the hours after sunrise. 1:00 Swa = 7:00 standard. 6:00 Swa = Noon standard. The hour hand follows the sun’s path.”

Two comments e.g. from the later:
“aredsash • 2023. III. 20.
Rwandans and Burundians have borrowed their system, even down to the numbers themselves. So instead of saying "saa rindwi (literally the 'seventh hour' meaning 1AM/PM) we say saa saba". We don't even use our own language to ask the time (ni saa ngahe ?) and just use the Swahili equivalent instead (Ni saa ngapi ?).”
—They are in CAT, but effectively in UTC–4 then, I guess.

“bbgirlouthere • 2023. III. 16.
As an American living in Tanzania (who also speaks Swahili), it definitely takes some getting used to but yeah pretty much all you can do is subtract or add six hours to whatever time you're hearing someone say. It always takes me an extra few seconds to get there. And interestingly, this is pretty much only the case when someone is actually speaking in Swahili; if they're talking to you in English they'll use the standard clock time. BUT sometimes people will use a mix of English and Swahili like, "I'll meet you at saa tisa mchana", with saa tisa mchana meaning hour nine or 3 o'clock in the afternoon; if they use full English like, "I'll meet you at 9 o'clock", then it's the standard 9 o'clock-- but sometimes you have to clarify to make sure. It's all very nuanced and interesting for a relative outsider like myself.”

I think we should gather the geographical or cultural areas where this timekeeping is used, I just started.

See also: Relative hour, Byzantine time, Roman timekeeping, Time in Turkey: History. (The two-step auth is not working for me now.) ~2025-43263-85 (talk) 10:16, 27 December 2025 (UTC)