The article is an overview of the results of a comprehensive study of categories of temporality in the island German dialects of the Altai. The project covers all groups of upper-and low-insular Altai German dialects, formed in a foreign language environment in the process of long-term contact with the Russian language. As research materials were used the transcripts of conversations with informants, materials from the Text Corpus of German dialects in Altai, the results of a linguistic questionnaire, and folklore of Russian Germans. The attraction and analysis of linguistic facts of various dialects allows to present the specific features of the German dialect groups of the Altai Territory. Being a language universal and one of the most important elements of the linguistic worldview, time is an ambiguous, multifaceted and diverse category. The object of research - the semantic category of temporality is of a complex nature, since both grammatical and lexical means are used to express it. The article describes the ways of expressing temporary relations in insular German dialects at different language levels. The category of temporality is mostly expressed through the temporal forms of the verb, which reveals a vivid picture of dialectal morphological variation in structure and meanings. The semantics and peculiarities of the use of temporal forms of the present, future and past tense in the dialects of Russian Germans, as well as changes in the morphological category of time, lead to a redistribution of functions in the system of temporal markers, in particular, in the system of means of expressing relative temporal values. The special role play the lexical temporal markers, concretizing and clarifying the temporal meanings expressed by grammatical means. The analysis and description of the different-level means of expressing temporal relations allows to consider the dynamics of the processes and changes taking place in the island German dialects in comparison with the literary German language, with dialects in Germany, as well as with other groups of insular German dialects.
