Here's another twig in our brushpile of discussion about the influence of social norms on the development of language, or the influence of linguistic norms on the development of society.

In Harry Turtledove's alternative history, Striking the Balance, he writes:

Dolger looked up when Bagnall came in. "Guten Tag," he said. "For a moment, I thought you might be one of the partisan brigadiers, but I know that was foolish of me. As well expect the sun to set in the east as a Russian to show up when he is scheduled."

"I think being late -- or at least not worrying about being on time -- is built into the Russian language," Bagnall answered in German. He'd done German in school, but had learned what Russian he had since coming to Pskov. He found it fascinating and frustrating in almost equal measure. "It has a verb form for doing something continuously and a verb form for doing something once, but pinning down the moment right now is anything but easy."

"This is true," Dolger said. "It makes matters more difficult. Even if Russian had the full complement of tenses of a civilized language, however, I am of the opinion that our comrades the partisan brigadiers would be late anyhow, simply because that is in their nature."

So, assuming that Turtledove's fiction is accurate in its portrayal of Russian and Russians, which caused what? Does Russian not have a verb form to reflect right now because Russian culture does not value the concept, or does Russian culture not focus on the concept because the language does not make it easy to express?