A Traveler Linguist in the Dutch East Indies

In 1853, from the colonial government base in Barus, van der Tuuk embarked on a journey to the Batak interior. His goal was only one: to observe the life and culture of the indigenous Batak tribe. He realized the danger awaiting him if he dared to enter an area not yet controlled by the Dutch. Slanted news among the Europeans also reported about the Batak people's penchant for eating people. His life was at stake.

Armed with his knowledge of the coastal Batak language and accompanied by a Malay trader, van der Tuuk arrived in the Bakara Valley in February. For his own safety, he claimed the name Raja Lambung before the ruler of the Land of Batak, Ompu Sohauaon, whose title was Sisingamangaraja XI. Raja Lambung was the crown prince of Sisingamangaraja X who was lost when the Minangkabau Padri invaded the Land of Batak. With his narrow eyes, yellow skin, and fluency in speaking Batak, van der Tuuk's disguise went smoothly for a while.

Van der Tuuk became the first European to witness the existence of Lake Toba, a place that was nothing more than hearsay for foreigners at that time. Before van der Tuuk, the Toba Batak people had persisted in keeping directions to Lake Toba a secret.

"They regard it as the abode of the gods and the forces that control the world," van der Tuuk wrote in his letter dated July 23, 1853 to Professor Jan van Gilse, secretary of the Netherlands Bible Society, quoted by E.M. Beekman in Fugitive Dreams: An Anthology of Dutch Colonial Literature. 

Apart from seeing Lake Toba and the magnificent palace-like Bolon houses, van der Tuuk found what he was looking for. He mingled with the datu or traditional healers who rewrote bark books called pustaha. He learned about Batak civilization, their history of creation, folklore, social institutions, and mantras from pustaha.

However, after a few days, his identity was revealed by someone who knew him in Barus. "I was surrounded by hundreds of Batak men with spears. They suspected and argued that I was a spy for the Dutch government," van der Tuuk wrote to van Gilse. 

After pointing his gun at the nose of Sisingamangaraja XI, van der Tuuk managed to escape. Nevertheless, the brief mission provided van der Tuuk with important insights.  He realized that the Toba Batak people were already familiar with literary tradition.

At the end of his letter to van Gilse, van der Tuuk stated, "I am now convinced to translate the Gospel into the Toba Batak language", a task he had originally hated.

Translating the Gospel

Herman Neubronner van der Tuuk was born in Malaka on October 24, 1824 when the region was under Dutch control. His father, Selfridus van der Tuuk, was a full-blooded Dutchman, while his mother, Loisa Neubronner, was of Eurasian descent with Malay blood. After Malaka was exchanged for Bengkulu in the Treaty of London, van der Tuuk spent his childhood in Surabaya.

At the age of 15, van der Tuuk completed his formal schooling and got accepted into the law department of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, as per his father's wishes. However, halfway through he became more interested in linguistics. From 1845, van der Tuuk studied Eastern languages such as Hebrew, Arabic and Sanskrit at Leiden University. A year later, his first publication was published. 

He reviewed the edits of the Malay literary text Johor Manikam by J.J. de Hollander, a lecturer in Malay at the Royal Military Academy in Breda, the Netherlands. Using the pen name S.B., van der Tuuk in the article “Geschiedenis van Djohor Manikam, uitgegeven door Dr. J.J. de Hollander", published in De Gids Vol. 10, No. I, 1846, criticized Hollander's translation, which he considered to be mixed with low-class Malay and therefore of low quality.

Van der Tuuk's ability to master languages was inseparable from his extraordinary memory. "He had a photographic memory," wrote Beekman. Van der Tuuk's talent attracted the attention of the Nederlands Bijbelgenootschap or NBG (the Netherlands Bible Society) to hire him. At that time, the NBG needed several linguists to translate the Gospels to Makassarese, Batak, Dayak, and Bugis. On the recommendation of his lecturer in Leiden, van der Tuuk was sent by the NBG to research the Batak language.

On December 8, 1847, van der Tuuk signed a contract with the NBG. He was commissioned to make a dictionary of the Batak language and its grammar. Then, he was required to translate the New Testament gospels into the Batak dialect.

"Van der Tuuk never liked the instructions of his two assignments. His attitude towards Christianity was not very positive and during his later life his antipathy became stronger," wrote A. Teeuw, Indonesian academic and literary critic, in the introduction to van der Tuuk's book, A Grammar of Batak Toba, printed in 1971.

Still, van der Tuuk accepted the offer on pragmatic grounds: working in the Dutch East Indies gave him the opportunity to visit his family. Also, the NBG paid him 4,000 guilders a year for a job he was fond of.

In the Land of Batak

Upon his arrival in Sumatra in 1851, van der Tuuk was assigned to Barus. In order to gather research material, he did everything he could to gain the trust of the local people. On foot, van der Tuuk traversed the entire Batak region.

Pandortuk or King Tuk, as the Batak people called him, always welcomed anyone who visited his house. This close association with the Batak people led van der Tuuk to oppose the use of Malay. His report to the NBG was accompanied by criticism of the attitude of Dutch officials who didn't know the Batak language and the character of the people.

"If the government wants to advance the natives then the officials should address their hearts and that will not happen while they are still using low-class Malay.  We are too arrogant to associate with the natives closely and we take the language as a trivial matter. Our marriage to profit has strangled any concern for the natives," van der Tuuk wrote to the NBG, quoted by Rob Nieuwenhuys in Bianglala Sastra: Bunga Rampai Sastra Belanda tentang Kehidupan di Indonesia (A Compendium of Dutch Literature on Life in Indonesia).

It was also van der Tuuk who urged the Dutch mission to immediately send evangelists to Tapanuli, and suggested they marry Batak women upon their arrival in Tapanuli and to raise pigs to stem the influence of Islam from the south. This insistence was motivated by his frustration in translating the Bible into Batak. In his letter to the NBG, March 27, 1854, van der Tuuk mentioned his difficulties in translating the Bible into Batak because of the absence of several words, for example to explain the words heaven, hell, and eternity. "I feel that a real translation of the Bible will only come to fruition after the influence of the missionaries," van der Tuuk wrote, quoted by Kees Groeneboer in "From Radja Toek to Goesti Dertik" in Jurnal Humaniora Vol. 14, No. 2, 2002.

In April 1857, van der Tuuk decided to take a leave of absence to the Netherlands. He brought with him 152 pustaha and 29 language manuscripts to be analyzed. During this time, he published his literary work on Batak linguistics: Bataksch-Nederduitsch Woordenboek (Batak-Dutch Dictionary, 1861) and Tobasche Spraakkunst (Toba Grammar, 1864). He also became the first linguist to design the Batak script. In Bataksch Leesboek (Batak Reading Book, 1860), he divided them into three sets based on sub-ethnicity: Angkola-Mandailing, Toba, and Pakpak. In addition, he translated several gospels, including Genesis, Exodus, John and Luke. 

According to Uli Kozok, a philologist at the University of Hawaii, van der Tuuk's Toba Batak grammar is the first scientifically compiled grammar of one of the local languages in the Dutch East Indies. "This is truly a remarkable achievement considering that at the time van der Tuuk compiled his grammar, the Land of Batak was still a terra incognita (unknown land) on the scientific map," Kozok wrote in Warisan Leluhur: Sastra Lama dan Aksara Batak (Ancestral Heritage: Old Literature and Batak Script).

Gusti Dertik

Upon his return from the Netherlands, van der Tuuk was commissioned again by the NBG. This time, he was asked to translate the Gospel into Balinese. However, his departure to Bali was delayed due to a local war in the Buleleng district and an outbreak of a cholera epidemic. While waiting for things to recover, van der Tuuk was posted to Lampung where he wasted no time and immediately explored the unfamiliar region.

Within a year (1868-1869), he wrote a 600-page manuscript containing a Lampung-Dutch dictionary. This work of van der Tuuk became the primary source for studying the ancient Lampung language. "However, the dictionary was not published, perhaps because at that time there were no suitable prints of Lampung language letters," wrote Groeneboer.

In April 1870, van der Tuuk finally arrived in Bali. He settled in the hamlet of Bataran, near Buleleng. As he had done in the Land of Batak, he integrated into Balinese society. He was always eccentric: wearing a sarong everywhere and bathing together with the locals.

His translating work, however, faced obstacles. According to van der Tuuk, the Balinese used the polite form of Javanese whose vocabulary is largely included in written sources. The language in question is Kawi (Old Javanese). He had no choice but to learn Kawi first, which stalled the translation of the Gospels.

Van der Tuuk resigned from the NGB in 1873 and started working for the government as a linguist. Sometimes he was seconded to Batavia to test candidates for the Dutch civil service in the Dutch East Indies.

Despite being a government employee, van der Tuuk often criticized his government for being passive towards the abuses of local kings against the people. He hated Dutch who liked to hide their evil deeds behind the Bible and railed against zending evangelists (of the protestant mission) who wanted to Christianize the natives without learning their language. He also addressed the Balinese who practiced the art of gandrung (male dancers dressed as women), which he considered an example of lack of morals. 

One of Bali’s princes remarked: There is only one man on the entire island of Bali who knows and understands the Balinese language, and that man is Tuan Dertik (Mr. van der Tuuk).

His desire to compile a Kawi dictionary never faded. He found countless amounts of written sources, and these thousands of palm-leaf manuscripts kept in palaces, temples, and owned by Balinese families became the material for his dictionary. "One of Bali's princes remarked: There is only one man on the entire island of Bali who knows and understands the Balinese language, and that man is Tuan Dertik (Mr. van der Tuuk)," wrote Nieuwenhuys.

Van der Tuuk was overwhelmed by the abundance of material. In fact, he almost went mad as new variants of the texts appeared every day. It affected his temper, which tended to explode, and took a toll on his physical health. His life was in mayhem. He never married and was only accompanied by a maid, a cook, and a nyai or mistress. He spent his days compiling the Kawi dictionary while battling acute dysentery. 

On August 17, 1894, he died in Surabaya Military Hospital and was buried in that same city. Fortunately, he had completed his work, after working on it for almost a quarter of a century, although it wasn't ready for printing. The trilingual Kawi-Balineesch-Nederlandsch Woordenboek dictionary became his monumental work. 

Due to the efforts of epigrapher Jan Laurens Andries Brandes, the first three volumes of the dictionary were published between 1897-1899. It was not until 1912 that the entire project was completed following the publication of the fourth volume. Amounting to 3,600 pages, the final volume was edited by Douwes Adolf Rinkes, the first director of Balai Pustaka.

"For many years, van der Tuuk's Kawi-Bali-Dutch Dictionary has been the main reference for anyone who wishes to pursue the study of Old Javanese language and literature," wrote P. Swantoro in Dari Buku ke Buku (From Book to Book).

The Van der Tuuk Paradox

A young pastor named Inger Ludwig Nommensen visited van der Tuuk in Amsterdam in 1861 to learn Batak language and culture. Nommensen would later be recognized as the most successful missionary in the Land of Batak. Van der Tuuk, on the other hand, despite claiming to be an atheist, had opened the door for the spread of Christian missions in North Sumatra. 

Quoting A. Teeuw in the article “Herman Neubronner van der Tuuk: Perintis Ilmu Bahasa Indonesia” (Herman Neubronner van der Tuuk: Pioneer of Indonesian Language Science), published in Kompas, August 13, 1994, van der Tuuk was a man full of paradoxes. He was marginal in many ways. He was neither Dutch nor Indonesian. His criticism of the Dutch East Indies government and the colonial system was scathing. As a linguist, van der Tuuk was both a militant scholar and an emotional flamboyant. He denounced the Dutch academic establishment that lived and wrote as it pleased in university rooms without realizing the problems faced by researchers in the field. He once showed this stance to Professor Taco Roorda, professor of Javanese at Delft University. He challenged Roorda's analysis that Javanese was the mother of all Nusantara languages. Roorda himself had never visited the Dutch East Indies, while van der Tuuk put forward his interpretation of language differences in Nusantara based on historical development, especially by elaborating the laws of language sound (klankwetten). Rob Nieuwenhuys, van der Tuuk's biographer, described the debate as a "merciless pen war" which van der Tuuk won. 

Van der Tuuk spent a lifetime walking across the jungle to gather data and accumulate knowledge. He died in seclusion, vengeful and suspicious of his fellow humans. Yet after his death, his name was recognized as the most influential linguist in the Netherlands, a country that van der Tuuk refused to recognize as his homeland. 

On the contrary, his name and his work are distant from the ears of Indonesians. Although both voiced the suffering of the colonized people, he was not as famous as Eduard Douwes Dekker, aka Multatuli, who came to prominence through the novel Max Havelaar. In fact, van der Tuuk's linguistic works are a form of dedication and totality for the knowledge of the Nusantara languages. He was part of an important record of the times about the country that would later be named Indonesia.