had wished to study the Batak languages instead. For a similar reason, when in Bali, he settled in a village among native inhabitants. In both cases, then, he wished to be among the authentic population. He often availed himself of the services of a native informer, keeping his company, sharing meals, thus garnering any linguistic information he could. He took copious notes, writing them out in the evenings. On the other hand, he stressed the great importance of written texts as sources of information. This was in line with his view that there was such a thing as “pure language use”. He also held that each and every language was a system in decline, whose pure form could only be discovered through reconstruction. He more and more inclined to the study of general linguistics. When applying himself to Balinese, he concluded, not unreasonably, that this was only possible in combination with a study of Old Javanese. Van der Tuuk's Laws In his many polemics, Van der Tuuk stated two laws which were named after him. Van der Tuuk's first Law states that among a number of Indonesian languages, the phonemes /r/, /g/, and /h/ alternate. Thus, pari in one language is equivalent to page in another and to pahe in yet another. urat alternates with ogat and ohat. Van der Tuuk's second Law states that the phonemes /r/, /d/, and /l/ are likewise interchangeable: pari beside padi and palai, and ron beside daun beside laun. Character and views Christianity Van der Tuuk has often been alleged to view Christianity unfavourably while at the same time earning his living with missionary activities, and this has led people to believe that his position was less than straightforward. It may be objected to this that he never dissembled his views. Indeed, when Van der Tuuk was considered for the post of NBG missionary translator, Professor Taco Roorda in a letter of recommendation stressed the fact that this candidate was “not a theologian”. He did, however, view mission as a civilising force, and in addition held the opinion that it would be able to check the advance of Islam. An advisory document to that effect by NBG to the Dutch government was based on a report by Van der Tuuk. When in the end Van der Tuuk became alienated from missionary activities, this was due to his impossible dilemma. On the one hand, he