Malay - Latin of the Pacific. Hugo Schuchardt's pursuit of language mixing and creole languages in the Malay world.

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 a founding figure 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.