In this project we study the properties of statistical- and rule-learning mechanisms in relation to the acquisition and evolution of language. We ask to what extent these mechanisms are unique to humans - or to human language - by comparing the acquisition of vocal structure in two species: humans (infants)…

Ancient Greek was spoken in a large number of different dialects. Although we do not find direct evidence for syllabic liquids in any of our sources, comparative evidence shows that these sounds must have been present in Proto-Greek, and that they were retained until comparatively recently in the prehistory…

This project investigates the influence that Arabic (esp. dialectal Arabic) has had on the Berber languages of Northern Africa.

This project examines how speakers store and process regular pitch variation.

La radicalisation est devenue un mot désignant notre monde en couleurs négatives. Ce livre cherche à comprendre ce que c'est que la radicalisation au Sahel et aux Pays-Bas?

This study examines the mutual intelligibility between all 225 pairs of 15 Chinese dialects, in two main branches, i.e., six Mandarin dialects and nine non-Mandarin (Southern) dialects.

Inaugural lecture

An analysis of pot decoration and hut distributions from the Central European Neolithic communities of Elsloo and Hienheim.

In this dissertation, the types of context Dutch speakers need to interpret the poly-interpretable word ergens ‘somewhere/anywhere’ are studied.

Study information

Conference, Workshop

The Leiden Summerschool in Languages and Linguistics, including courses in Papyrology, is now open. BA/MA/PhD students are welcome to attend.

Unlike the predominant and excessive focus on the problems of food production and food insecurity in Africa, this project views African culinary tradition as a vibrant and rich cultural heritage, intertwined with language use.

This dissertation provides a grammatical description of Ghomara Berber, a Berber language spoken in North-West Morocco by about 10.000 people. The grammar consists of a description of the phonology, the morphology and the syntax. In the appendices a number of texts and a wordlist are included. The data…

This dissertation investigates Extended Lexical Units (ELUs), elements that are bigger than just one word and which are stored in the Lexicon.

My research addresses the function of the much-debated particle -nā in Biblical Hebrew, often translated with “please”, from the point of view of the most important ancient Bible translations (Greek, Syriac, Latin). It combines textual criticism, translation technique, discourse pragmatics, and the…

This dissertation defends the existence of a type of movement that has so far been considered not to be possible, namely, movement of a bare head to a specifier position over arbitrarily long distances.

Lecture, LUCL Colloquium | Comparative Indo-European Linguistics (CIEL) Seminars

Lecture

The goal of the MODOMA-project is to create a computer model of language acquisition.

Lecture

This special issue of the International Forestry Review talks about how logging really affects society.

This catalogue is the result of the EU_CUL project (2018-2021), which explores the use of cultural heritage in Europe for fostering academic teaching and social responsibility in higher education.

This article explores how notions of citizenship are negotiated in encounters between parents and youth care professionals in Amsterdam in the context of heated debates over citizenship and belonging. We draw on ethnographic research on Egyptian migrant parents’ interactions with the welfare state,…

This dissertation the role of the English dissenting minister Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) as a grammarian is studied.

Lecture, CIEL Seminars

On February 20th, Gulnaz Sibgatullina succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Gulnaz on this great result.

Intelligence of the crowd, or in other words, intelligence of a large, random collective, exists mostly in social media platforms such as twitter. The collective does not comprise (at least not necessarily) experts on crises, just regular people mostly. Nevertheless, there is valuable intelligence to…

Death’s Social and Material Meaning beyond the Human is edited by Jesse D. Peterson, Natashe Lemos Dekker and Philip R. Olson

Irene Moretti published the article Kin Enough in Social Analysis, The International Journal of Anthropology.

The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences provides its ca. 5000 students with a thorough education in the social and behavioural sciences. The student population is very diverse and international in nature.

Studying one another’s languages and cultures fosters understanding between groups of people, which leads to more equality, along with increased economic, administrative, and cultural cooperation.

The Humanities Faculty Teaching Award has been won by Olja Karmanova. The Russian lecturer was presented with the award during the opening of the faculty year.

When alumnus Jonathan Katzman started his master's programme in Russian and Eurasian Studies, he didn't foresee how useful those skills would be in the near future. Now, he manages a refugee centre for Ukrainians who have fled their war-torn country.

This book offers a detailed analysis of social policy in Ecuador, covering its evolution over the past four decades. It examines how social relations and institutional frameworks have influenced concepts of well-being, the implemented policies, and the outcomes achieved.

The projects of nine researchers at Leiden University have received funding through the new NWO Science Diplomacy Fund. The Fund is for scientific activities that will improve relations between the Netherlands and other countries.

In this project, the hypothesis that language contact crucially impacts the development of spatial grammar and phonology is investigated.

Descriptions of different languages help us understand what speakers of different languages share worldwide. At the same time, having descriptions of languages available can also change local education and open our eyes to cultural and linguistic diversity. But what if a language has not yet been (fully)…

This thesis investigates the connection between tonal realization and tone change (tone sandhi) in Wenzhou Chinese, and whether and how such a connection is conditioned by prosodic structure and focus marking.

The 10th edition of the World Congress of African Linguists (WOCAL), hosted by Leiden University, will be held online from 7 – 12 June. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) researchers give us an insight into how important and special this event actually is.

Interested in Area Studies? Then Leiden is the place to be! Join our Online Area Studies Week from 2-5 June to find out more. From Africa to Brasil and from Korea to Russia, Leiden covers all areas and fields, both in language, literature, history, politics and socio-economics. Join our live Q&As!