Herman Neubronner van der Tuuk was born on 23 February 1824 in Malacca (Melaka), then a Dutch possession. He was the eldest of four children of the Dutch (Frisian) lawyer and civil servant Sefridus van der Tuuk (born Mensingeweer 1776, died Surabaya 1853), and the Eurasian Louisa Neubronner (born Malacca c. 1795, died Surabaya 1845). As a consequence of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty signed in London on 17 March 1824, whereby Malacca came under British administration, the Van der Tuuk family moved to Surabaya in 1825 where Herman spent his childhood.

At the age of twelve, the young Herman was sent to Europe for his education, and entrusted to an uncle Van der Tuuk in Friesland. At the age of sixteen he was admitted to Groningen University, where he was supposed to read law according to his father’s wish. Van der Tuuk did read law, but never completed his study. Already fluent in Malay and Javanese, he followed his true vocation as a born linguist. In Groningen, and from either late 1845 or early 1846 in Leiden, he studied Oriental languages, to begin with Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian, and several European languages as well, even Basque. A rebellious personality gifted with a fabulous memory and a phenomenal aptitude at studying languages, Van der Tuuk was remembered by one of his fellow students in Groningen as a remarkable student who was able to memorize a dictionary within a few days. He was indeed a peculiar student, and he did not bother to pass exams. Within the traditional higher educational system he might have been considered a failure, but this did not prevent him to become a scholar with a peerless erudition who in 1861 was granted an honorary doctor’s degree by the University of Utrecht. Besides the mandatory Latin and Greek, Van der Tuuk learned ultimately several Indo European, many Indonesian and other Austronesian languages ranging from Malagasy to languages of Taiwan (Formosa) and the Philippines, not to forget several Austro-Asiatic languages from the Southeast Asian mainland. Even Chinese was no left untouched by Van der Tuuk’s tremendous appetite for linguistic knowledge.

The student Van der Tuuk had no intention to follow his father’s example and become a lawyer, and after having neglected his law studies in Groningen, he abandoned altogether them in Leiden. With the years passing he somehow had to make a living of his oriental linguistic knowledge, and he seized an opportunity offered by the Netherlands Bible Society . The society, ever since its foundation in 1814, considered it one of its tasks to make the Bible available in the vernaculars of the various ethnic groups of the Dutch colonies. In the 1840s the Indonesian languages were for the Westerners, besides Malay and Javanese, for the most part linguae incognitae. The Amsterdam-based society needed young scholars in those years who would study the languages of the Dayak in Borneo (Kalimantan), Makassarese and Buginese in southern Celebes (Sulawesi), and the Batak languages of the ethnic groups living in the highlands of northern Sumatra. Van der Tuuk was thought to be a highly suitable candidate to be the society’s representative in Sumatra, and was recommended by several of his professors. In spite of his abrasive personality and his well-known reputation as a freethinker, and his lack of enthusiasm for a mission in a remote region which still belonged for the most part to the terrae incognitae, Van der Tuuk was chosen by the Netherlands Bible Society. One should keep in mind that very few Westerners had travelled into the hart of northern Sumatra when Van der Tuuk was appointed by the Bible Society, and that the Batak homeland would be integrated in the Dutch colonial state between 1875 and 1906. The Board of the society had a very sound and liberal idea about the duties to be assigned to its representatives who were pioneers in the linguistic field. They were not appointed to do missionary work but to compose dictionaries and grammars, as well as other means for study of the languages, such as collecting and publishing texts, and eventually to translate the Bible, at least a selection of books of the Old Testament, and the Gospels.

Van der Tuuk was appointed on 8 December 1847, but did not leave the Netherlands before 1849. It seems all too logical that he was granted time to prepare his mission, learn the little information that the Bible Society had gathered on the several Batak ethnic groups in their remote mountainous country, on their languages, and on the future circumstances for their representative, and read the scarce publications on the subject. Van der Tuuk studied and transcribed the Batak manuscripts which were available in collections in Delft and in London. Thanks to his astonishing linguistic knowledge, and brilliant instinct, he managed to produce a preliminary Batak glossary, wrote three extensive accounts on the Malay, Javanese and Batak manuscripts he studied in London, of which one was published, and between times, he also published a commentary on a Malay text.

At the beginning of June 1849 Van der Tuuk set off to Batavia were he arrived three months later. Shortly after he had visited his family in Surabaya he became so seriously ill that he was not able travel to Sumatra before January 1851. His weakened state, both physically and mentally, did not prevent him, however, to study Sundanese in Bogor (Buitenzorg) where he spent several months to recover. Since it was impossible, logistically and for reasons of safety as well, that he would spend years in a region which was by no means controlled by the Dutch administration, Van der Tuuk had to settle on the outskirts of the Batak lowlands. Assigned to Sibolga, on the western coast of North Sumatra, he experienced soon that the place was not suitable for his studies, and moved therefore to Barus, situated further to the north along the same coast where the Batak language was not yet surpassed by Malay, and where Batak people from the highlands gathered for their trade. In the next six years the house he had built in Barus became a centre where Van der Tuuk would welcome, and even provide shelter, a very unorthodox if not reprehensible way of sharing one another’s life in a colonial society, to many native speakers of Batak. Since Toba Batak was the most widely spoken of the Batak languages, he focused his studies on this language for his dictionary and grammar. One can guess that Van der Tuuk did not neglect, however, the other Batak languages, in particular Anggola, Dairi and Mandailing. Surrounded by many local people, Van der Tuuk led nevertheless a very lonely and isolated life in Barus. In 1852 and 1853 he undertook two expeditions to the Batak highlands, and he was the first Westerner to reach Lake Toba in 1853. In a letter to his employers, and in one of his numerous note books, he made a vivid account of his encounters and discoveries. His journeys on foot were an extraordinary accomplishment for a lone European. After the trying second expedition, where he had to run twice for his life, and, if caught, would have been eaten, Van der Tuuk decided that it was not safe to renew the experience. After 1853 he continued to devote his life to his studies and meetings with native informants in Barus. In 1856, exhausted and ill, he was granted home leave, but eventually did not leave Barus before April 1857. In spite of his poor health, he walked all the way to Padang, a journey profitable for his study of the Mandailing Batak, embarked on a boat to Batavia, and from there returned to the Netherlands. Notwithstanding the adverse circumstances, and the deplorable material conditions, the nearly six years spent in northern Sumatra were extremely fruitful.

Van der Tuuk arrived in the Netherlands in October 1857 with an invaluable collection of manuscripts, transcriptions of oral stories, thousands of pages of notes, an amazing knowledge of the Batak societies, and also of the political and economic situation of the region. His linguistic achievement, his perseverance and his endurance were much praised, but unfortunately, his sound and progressive advices were unwelcome. They did not meet with the direct interest of the Bible Society, nor with the short-sighted Dutch colonial government, especially when he defended the native population against prejudices and what he considered hypocritical diffamation. Van der Tuuk settled in Amsterdam, where the Bible Society had its headquarters, and remained in the city until 1868. He produced a Toba Batak grammar, dictionary and reader, with a separate volume that included a number of folktales. He continued expanding his knowledge of Indonesian languages, and by doing so steadily developed his insight in the relationship between the Malayo-Polynesian (Austronesian) languages. In this regard, he also published an 'Outline of a grammar of the Malagasy language' as another proof of his insatiable interest in comparative language studies. Besides the publication of other articles on Malay language and literature, he felt compelled to meet his employers’ instructions by translating into Toba Batak, and publishing two books of the Old Testament and the Gospels.

As early as 1862, the board of the Bible Society had decided to send Van der Tuuk to Bali, but the latter was far from being ready for another assignment. Besides the many tasks he wanted to finish before embarking for the second time for the Indies, Van der Tuuk resumed his study of Javanese, well aware of the fact that this language was the key to Balinese. Finally he left the Netherlands in April 1868, and embarked in Marseilles after having made a detour via Rome and Florence. He would never see Europe again.

When he disembarked in Batavia in the summer of 1868, Van der Tuuk could not sail directly to his final destination. Due to epidemics and uprisings in Bali, his voyage was adjourned sine die. Not inclined to wait in Batavia for an unknown period of time among the European colonial society he loathed, Van der Tuuk accepted an assignment of the colonial government to study the language spoken in the Lampung districts in southern Sumatra. He was well prepared for this task, since during the final period of his stay in Amsterdam he had edited a facsimile publication of a number of Lampung manuscripts, with an introduction of the language. He stayed in southern Sumatra for well over a year, travelled all over the area on foot, faithful to the pioneering fieldwork he had experienced in northern Sumatra. The result of his investigations consisted of several published articles on the Lampung language as well as a draft dictionary, but unfortunately he never found the occasion to edit and make it ready for publication. Thanks to his legacy, his draft remains nonetheless available for researchers.

In April 1870 Van der Tuuk finally arrived in Singaraja, in northern Bali. In this still modest centre of the Dutch administration, he did not feel at ease and free to fulfill his mission according to his ways. He therefore moved quickly to the small village of Baratan, a few miles from Pabean-Buleleng, the harbour of Singaraja. He had a simple house built of bamboo and wood, and settled down in his new environment where, with the exception of a few obligatory trips to Java, he remained until a few days before his death. Van der Tuuk entirely submerged himself in native society in the same respectful manner as he had done in Sumatra. True to his convictions, he attacked the obdurate colonial system as well as missionary work during his years in Bali. His antireligious feelings became more strident, and finally he resigned his contract with the Bible Society in 1873 to enter the service of the Government. With the title of 'civil servant for the study of Indonesian languages' (ambtenaar voor de beoefening van Indische talen) he continued in Bali his work for the next twenty years.

In Bali, Van der Tuuk worked on a Old Javanese, Balinese and Dutch dictionary (Kawi-Balineesch-Nederlandsch woordenboek). It was an immense task and he never finished it. The first volume edited by J. Brandes went to press in Batavia (Jakarta) in 1893, but due to editorial problems, the author would never see its publication in 1897, three years after his death. Two more volumes followed in 1899, and in 1901. With Brandes’ death in 1905, the publication of the last volume, edited by D.A. Rinkes, was delayed until 1912. Van der Tuuk would have had all reasons to be proud of his incredible achievement, eventually published in four volumes totaling 3.622 pages, but without the illustrations he had in mind.

Although he was eager to avoid European colonial society, Van der Tuuk corresponded nonetheless with the scholarly world from his remote village in North Bali, and he published numerous articles in the press of the Indies and in specialized journals (for an exhaustive bibliography see: Groeneboer 2002).

Van der Tuuk recovered many times from serious illness during his life, but the last illness happened to be fatal to the 70-year-old and weakened man. On 17 August 1897 Van der Tuuk passed away in the Military hospital of Surabaya were he had been transported a few days earlier.