that Van der Tuuk was able to depart for the Dutch East Indies once more. The need was now felt for a Bible translation into Balinese, and Van der Tuuk was to be stationed on the Isle of Bali. Van der Tuuk did not allow himself to be affected by these considerations. He remained in the Netherlands, working on his two-volume Batak grammar, which was published in 1864 and 1867. He did, however, take up the study of other languages, among them Balinese and Old Javanese or Kawi, and published extensively on the Malay language. In 1868 he became a correspondent of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and returned to the Dutch East-Indies, first travelling to the Lampung region of South Sumatra to write a dictionary of its language. Once more he was struck by illness, and returned to Java in 1869, in passing making a study of the Sundanese (West Javanese) language, and in 1870 left for Bali. On that island, he set to work on a dictionary of Balinese, only to find that this necessitated a study of Kawi (Old Javanese). This led him to the conclusion that he had better write a trilingual dictionary: of Kawi, Balinese and Dutch. However, NBG was primarily interested in Bible translation, and rather jibed at Van der Tuuk's plans. He therefore decided to resign and became a civil servant in 1873. In that capacity, he worked on his trilingual dictionary for the rest of his life, and this magnum opus was not to appear before his death. Meanwhile, he was also active in other linguistic activities, such as reworking a dictionary of Malay and a dictionary of Kawi and Modern Javanese. He died, aged 70, in Surabaya. Van der Tuuk bequeathed his entire collection of manuscripts, scholarly notes, drawings, photographs and books to Leiden University Library. Language command Beside studying a variety of Indonesian languages, he also had extensive command of other tongues, such as Arabic, Tamil, Sanskrit and languages from other parts of South-East Asia. It was rumoured that he was able to learn a dictionary by heart in a matter of days, and to learn a language in a few months. Methods and insights Van der Tuuk's method was twofold. On the one hand, he sought the company of native speakers, and for that reason he had avoided Siboga with its strong Malay influences when he