Languages almost always find ways to fill in gaps of how to express something. Often through the form of shared knowledge or idioms. "I woke up a few hours bef

Languages almost always find ways to fill in gaps of how to express something. Often through the form of shared knowledge or idioms. "I woke up a few hours before the roosters' crow to catch a flight." It would be awkward to say that today, but potentially less so in some alternate-dimension universal time zone world where it could be a common idiom for "wee hours of the morning". Hours would still have meaning, people at least have the thought that "roosters crow at sunrise". So you got up a few hours before sunrise, whenever that time was.