WULFF, Kurt. Hellerup 4.9.1881 — Copenhagen 4.5.1939. Danish Linguist (Indologist, South-East and East Asian Scholar and Sinologist). Librarian in Copenhagen. Son of Peter Wulff (d. 1898), a cigar manufacturer, and Emma Heydorn, a Holsteinian (German, but politically on Danish side) family. Matriculated in 1900, studied classics at Copenhagen, also linguistics under Thomsen. Further studies in 1903 at Oxford, 1905-06 at Leipzig (Brugmann, Windisch). M.A. 1906 in Classics. In 1906-08 Assistant of the Thesaurus linguae Latinae in Munich, also studied Indology and Malay under E. Kuhn. Ph.D. 1916 Copenhagen. From 1918 worked in Kongelige Bibliothek in Copenhagen, also taught Greek at the university. PD 1920 Copenhagen, taught Old Turkic, Chinese and Malay. In 1922-24 in Peking and Malaysia. From 1926 Lecturer in Chinese at Copenhagen, from 1928 Docent of East Asian Languages, until death. Married 1908 Karen Wassmann, one daughter.

Wulff started as a Greek and Latin scholar, moved to Indology and soon to South-East Asian studies (Old Javanese and Malay). In his later years he mainly worked on Chinese, but also continued Old Javanese.

Publications: Diss. Den oldjavanske Wirâṭaparva og dens Sanskritoriginal. Bidrag til Mahabharata-Forskningen. 270 p. Copenhagen 1917.

– Translated: Sang Hyang Ka-Măhāyānan Mantrānaya. Aussprache bei der Weihe buddhistischer Mönche. 72 p. Dansk Vid.selsk. Medd. 21:4. Copenhagen 1935 (from Old Javanese).

– Chinesisch und Tai. Sprachvergleichende Untersuchungen. 260 p. Dansk Vid.selsk. Medd. 20:3. Copenhagen 1934; Über das Verhältnis des malayo-polynesischen zum indochinesischen. 157 p. Dansk Vid.selsk. Medd. 27:2. Copenhagen 1942; some further books and articles.

Sources: L. Hjelmslev, Dansk Biogr. Lex. 2nd ed. 26, 1944, 352-355; Pauly, Køb. Univ. 8, 1992, 557; *P. Tuxen, Overs. Dan. Vid. Selsk. 1939-40, 1940, 88-101; Danish Wikipedia.