Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction: Global Conceptual History: Promises and Pitfalls of a New Research Agenda
- 1 How Concepts Met History in Korea's Complex Modernization: New Concepts of Economy and Society and their Impact
- 2 Differing Translations, Contested Meanings: A Motor for the 1911 Revolution in China?
- 3 Notions of Society in Early Twentieth-Century China, 1900–25
- 4 Sabhā-Samāj Society: Some Linguistic Considerations
- 5 The Conceptualization of the Social in Late Nineteenth-and Early Twentieth-Century Arabic Thought and Language
- 6 From Kerajaan (Kingship) to Masyarakat (The People): Malay Articulations of Nationhood through Concepts of the ‘Social’ and the ‘Economic’, 1920–40
- 7 Building Nation and Society in the 1920s Dutch East Indies
- 8 Discordant Localizations of Modernity: Reflections on Concepts of the Economic and the Social in Siam during the Early Twentieth Century
- Notes
- Index
4 - Sabhā-Samāj Society: Some Linguistic Considerations
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Acknowledgements
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Introduction: Global Conceptual History: Promises and Pitfalls of a New Research Agenda
- 1 How Concepts Met History in Korea's Complex Modernization: New Concepts of Economy and Society and their Impact
- 2 Differing Translations, Contested Meanings: A Motor for the 1911 Revolution in China?
- 3 Notions of Society in Early Twentieth-Century China, 1900–25
- 4 Sabhā-Samāj Society: Some Linguistic Considerations
- 5 The Conceptualization of the Social in Late Nineteenth-and Early Twentieth-Century Arabic Thought and Language
- 6 From Kerajaan (Kingship) to Masyarakat (The People): Malay Articulations of Nationhood through Concepts of the ‘Social’ and the ‘Economic’, 1920–40
- 7 Building Nation and Society in the 1920s Dutch East Indies
- 8 Discordant Localizations of Modernity: Reflections on Concepts of the Economic and the Social in Siam during the Early Twentieth Century
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Among the chapters of our project dealing with conceptual history, mine is probably not typical. The idea of it was conceived during the Helsinki meeting of 2008, when, listening to the interesting contributions, I realized that there was a definite need for some linguistic background to the discussion. I mentioned this to Bo Stråth, who immediately welcomed the idea. To tell the truth, without the enthusiasm and insistence of Bo, I would never have become a member of this project, which has been an experience that I have found fascinating.
My contribution in this chapter therefore concentrates on language, and mainly on sociolinguistics and diachronic linguistics. I understand that there are some methodological problems involved and, in spite of my different approach, I fully accept the importance of the study of concepts as used in actual texts. But this is a joint venture and, while others have concentrated on texts and on the Sattelzeit or transitional period from the 1880s, I see my task as shedding some light on the linguistic background. In doing this, I cannot work without dictionaries, although I have also verified the original Sanskrit uses in texts. I came to the conceptual history project as an outsider – a philologist – and I planned my contribution accordingly. My recent reading of and about Koselleck was certainly beneficial.
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- Information
- A Global Conceptual History of Asia, 1860–1940 , pp. 75 - 90Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014