In 1864, Schuchardt earned a doctorate with a dissertation entitled De sermonis Romani plebei vocalibus ('On the vowels of Vulgar Latin').
Based upon a perusal of "an incredible amount of texts never really considered before him",[1] it was subsequently published 1866-1868 in a three-volume German language edition as Der Vokalismus des Vulgärlateins (The Vowels of Vulgar Latin).
[2] At least one remnant of the equality question - whether creoles have a separate developmental route or develop along a universal trajectory with other languages - are still debated.
[3] With his 1888 publication "Auf Anlass des Volapüks" he promoted the creation of a new auxiliary world language for all nations.
Bonaparte arranged Schuchardt's journey to the village of Sara (Labourd, Basses Pyrénées), where he did field work and seems to have learned Basque .
Disappointed by the "unjust peace" following World War I, Italian irredentism and French nationalism ('chauvinism'), he was no longer interested in Romance research, partly even giving up contacts with colleagues from these countries.
In an article (Bekenntnisse und Erkenntnisse 1919), he gives some oral history insights into his youth and historic events of that time as well as his viewpoint of the outcome of World War I. Hugo Schuchardt is one of the most eminent linguists of the Germanic tradition within Romance philology.