Malay – Latin of the pacific

Abstract

This article traces the development of Hugo Schuchardt's interest in the linguistic diversity and complex interactions in the Malay world. Schuchardt is widely acknowledged today as the founder of creole studies. He had an avid interest in Malay, especially vernacular varieties and Malay-based lingua francas, within the framework of his famed creole studies. In the Malay world, Schuchardt found a mirror image of the emergence of the Romance languages. This article draws on Schuchardt's correspondence, writings and extensive source collections to portray the development of his ideas about the linguistic situation in the Malay world and to trace the influence of his Malayan studies on his theoretical thinking and linguistic enquiries concerning other regions of the world. The continuing appeal of Schuchardt's writings is the surprising ease and irreverence with which he transcended disciplinary boundaries which had seemingly been set in stone; boundaries delimitating increasingly – in Schuchardt's lifetime – orientalist scholarship from the study of Indo-European languages and the then paradigmatic Indo-Germanic philology.

Keywords:

• Hugo Schuchardt
• history of linguistics
• creole languages
• Malay language
• lingua franca
• mixed language

Notes

1 Suzanne Romaine (2009: 857–8) gives the following definition: European colonization … created a classic scenario for the emergence of new language varieties called pidgin and creoles out of trade between the native inhabitants and Europeans. The term … ‘creole’ was used in reference to a nonindigenous person born in the American colonies, and later used to refer to customs, flora, and fauna of these colonies. Many pidgins and creoles grew up around trade routes in the Atlantic or Pacific, and subsequently in settlement colonies on plantations, where a multilingual work force comprised of slaves or indentured immigrant laborers needed a common language. Although European colonial encounters have produced the most well-known and studied languages, there are examples of indigenous pidgins and creoles predating European contact.

2 The university library of Graz holds approximately 13,000 letters addressed to Schuchardt. Most of Schuchardt's own letters are lost though a few can be found in other archives.

3 Schuchardt travelled extensively in the Mediterranean and Switzerland. He studied Basque in the French Basque region in 1877 (Schwerteck 1980: 223) and Cymraeg (Welsh) in Wales in 1875. In his sixties he conducted fieldwork in Egypt. Suffering from indifferent health and an array of what would today be described as psychosomatic afflictions, Schuchardt toured the spas of Central Europe and Italy (Wolf 1993).

4 All of Schuchardt's informants consistently denied the existence of a Dutch creole. Two Dutch-based creoles with roots in late 19th-century colonial society have since been described under the name of Javindo and Petjo, the latter influenced by Batavian Malay (Amade 1995; de Gruiter 1990; de Gruiter 1994; Rheeden 1994; de Vries 2005).

5 My sincere gratitude to Fritz Schulze for the transcription and his help with the translation.

6 He consulted H.C. Klinkert's 1882 edition.

7 The qualities but also the problematic aspects of Schuchardt's work can be highlighted through a comparison with the recent compilation of Schuchardt's linguistic data by the Creolist Philippe Maurer. (Maurer 2011). He presents the creole data (with the addition of material taken from later researchers) in a systematic way, according to modern linguistic conventions. Maurer pared Schuchardt's wide horizon of linguistic comparison, his detailed account of Malay influences as well as the detailed account of historical and cultural dimensions shaping the Portuguese Creole of Batavia and Tugu to a bare minimum. Though he refers to Batavian Malay in passing, recent research and linguistic scholarship are not included. Maurer's only cultural historical reference is a quotation from Wikipedia.

Additional information

Author biography

Isabella Matauschek is Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary History at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria. Her current research project centres on linguistic and intercultural encounters in the context of the Dutch East India Company (VOC).