Many of the language rules we use today were formulated in the 17th and 18th centuries. In a dual track at the universities of Leiden and Brussels, PhD candidate Eline Lismont investigated why some rules became successful while other rules were quickly forgotten.

This book is the first grammar on Ternate Malay, a local variety of Malay spoken on the island of Ternate, North-Moluccas, Indonesia.

The prehistory of communication metaphors

Preparatory year Leiden

In this dissertation a large corpus of letter signs and texts gathered during fieldwork in Niger, and to a lesser extent Mali and Burkina Faso is used to show the graphemic diversity of the traditional script of the Tuaregs, tifinagh, and to analyze the orthographic system.

A linguistic reconstruction of the migration of the Tocharians from Europe to China

This PhD project investigates how language models can be used to extract structured knowledge from text in a way that is accurate, robust, and applicable to real-world use cases.

On the 10th of November, Sara Petrollino succesfully defended her PhD-thesis and graduated. LUCL congratulates Sara on this great result.

Are you planning to register for an English taught Master’s Degree Programme after your Bachelor’s programme? In order to assess what your current level of English is, you are invited to complete an Online Oxford Quick Placement Test.

This thesis investigates the historical development of Japanese pitch accent.

Paul Wouters received the RISE Award, an award by the women’s network RISE, for his commitment to increasing gender equality at the Faculty of Science. ‘It makes it clear that it is possible to truly make a change in 9 months. That is why I am happy with this award.’

This book is a first comparative study of the Nuni dialects.

The Dutch prefix ge- in historical perspective gives first of all a general account of the development of the word formation processes involving ge- in which special attention is paid to the participial ge-.

The goal of our research is to analyze Natorp’s redefinition of the distinction between intuitions and concepts in relation to his conception of the method of philosophy. We will exhibit the connection between the way in which Natorp redefines the Kantian dichotomy and his conception of the method of…

Timo Slootweg, associate professor at he department Philosophy of Law, published a chapter about Paul Scholten in

For many deaf Ghanaians, Ghanaian Sign Language is their first language. But for more deaf signers to be able to fully participate in society, more sign language interpreters, deaf school teachers and family members need to be trained. What better way to facilitate this by means of a Ghanaian Sign Language…

How would you convert Egyptian hieroglyphs into Latin script? And what is actually the correct translation of dishes on a Vietnamese menu? On Saturday 28 January, high school students from all over the Netherlands will come to Leiden to ponder a series of language-related puzzles. Their goal? To win…

The CNaVT exam is the official, international exam of Dutch as a Foreign Language for all who learn Dutch all over the world. The Catholic University of Leuven organizes the exam. The Dutch Language Union has commissioned this collaboration.

ChatGPT, translation machines and bots: for Carole Tiberius, they are a piece of cake. On 1 January, she was appointed professor of Computational Linguistics. 'There ae two elements to the field: computer science and linguistics.'

Anyone who creates a page for a magazine, a PowerPoint presentation, a brochure, a poster or dreams up an idea for an infographic is faced with important questions:

The project Going Dutch investigates why the link between being or becoming Dutch, and knowledge of Standard Dutch is so often taken for granted in public discourse, by diving into its historical roots.

Umberto Selva, a Leiden graduate of the Research MA program of Linguistics, has received for his thesis the international award for best MA thesis in the field of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics of the year 2015.

The main purpose of this book is to give a description of the Cholón language as represented in the Arte de la lengua cholona (ALC), a colonial grammar written in 1748 by a Franciscan friar, named Pedro de la Mata. The ALC was transcribed by Fray Gerónimo Clota in 1772. This grammar is kept in the British…

Research has shown that the impact of feedback can be very powerful on second language acquisition. However, how to provide adaptive feedback on speaking skills in foreign languages and how to provide differentiated support in secondary schools in regular secondary schools classes of often 25-30 students?…

PhD defence

Where does Dutch come from? Newly appointed Professor Alwin Kloekhorst looks for an answer to that question in millennia-old languages from Anatolia, the Asian part of present-day Turkey. 'A new interpretation in one of the Anatolian languages can have consequences for dozens of other languages.'

In 2014 Russia entered Ukraine and occupied Crimea, and about two and a half years ago it began a large-scale invasion. For Ukraine, it’s a war. But Russia calls it a ‘special military operation’. Word choices of this kind affect how people look at issues. A Dutch Research Council (NWO) project led…

If you’re considering the English Language and Culture bachelor’s programme and would like to experience what it’s like to study in Leiden University, introductory activities that include an Open Day, Experience Day and Student for a Day, will help you make up your mind.

Linguist Sara Petrollino has written the first detailed grammar of Hamar, a language spoken in south-west Ethiopia that has some unique characteristics. PhD defence 10 November.

Lecture, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics (CIEL) Seminars

Good news for Linguistics alumna Anne-Mieke Thieme, who has won the thesis prize awarded by the European Federation of National Institutions for Language (EFNIL). ‘I emailed my thesis supervisor right away.’

Professor Jenny Doetjes has received an NWO grant to research the cross-linguistic properties of quantity expressions and our brain's influence on language.

This dissertation focuses on the overt marking of φ features encoded on perfective active auxiliaries in a group of Southern Italian dialects.

Professor Johan Rooryck will be examining cognition and core knowledge systems and how possession is expressed in different languages. Rooryck and fellow researchers have been awarded two NWO grants totalling 2.75 million euro to carry out two research programmes: 'Knowledge and Culture' and 'Lend me…