This book brings together phonologists working in different areas to explore key questions relating to phonological primitives, the basic building blocks that are at the heart of phonological structure and over which phonological computations are carried out.

This work provides a typologically oriented description of clause linkage strategies in Ket, a highly endangered language spoken in Central Siberia. It is now the only surviving member of the Yeniseian language family with the last remaining speakers residing in the north of Russia’s Krasnoyarsk pro…

The decades around 1800 constitute the seminal period of European nationalism. The lin­guistic corollary of this was the rise of standard language ideology, from Finland to Spain, and from Iceland to the Habsburg Empire. Amidst these international events, the case of Dutch in the Netherlands offers…

This is the first comprehensive commentary on a section of Xenophon's Anabasis in English for almost a century.

Speech Prosody is the biennial meeting of the Speech Prosody Special Interest Group (SProSIG) of the International Speech Communication Association (ISCA).

Like any language, the natural sign languages of deaf communities differ from each other in their grammars and lexicons. A growing number of studies indicates that sign languages make use of the gestures of hearing speakers to build linguistic structure. This implies that variation and similarities…

Find out how to apply for Modern Languages at Leiden University by following our step-by step guide.

An in-depth history of Large Language Models—and what their ubiquity, disruption, and creativity mean from a wider sociopolitical perspective.

This dissertation provides a detailed description of the interaction between verb semantics and the two grammatical voice categories in the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda.

Sociopragmatics is a rapidly growing field and this is the first ever handbook dedicated to this exciting area of study.

On the 18th of June, Abel Warries successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Abel on this achievement!

This project investigates the sources of variability in prosody comprehension.

These are our lecturers (in alphabetical order) for the 2026 Summer School in Languages and Linguistics.

In our HANDS!Lab for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies, we run projects pertaining to sign language linguistics with a focus on Africa. In addition, we are running projects on sign language teaching, tactile signing, deaf people’s experiences with the legal system, and deaf history.

Data sets available for scientific/research purposes.

Conference

The Social Resilience & Security interdisciplinary programme broadens its scope by embedding two research projects lead by Dr. Joanne Mouthaan. The projects adress suicide prevention skills and mental health of Ukraine refugees. Both projects will be integrated in the programme with the aim to improve…

Speech Prosody 2024 includes seven special sessions. When making a submission, authors are asked to indicate whether they want their paper to be considered for a special session. You can find descriptions of each below.

Veel Nederlanders hebben fysieke, psychische en sociale problemen tegelijk. Zij hebben hulp nodig van meerdere professionals uit verschillende organisaties. Fia van Heteren onderzoekt hoe deze professionals met elkaar én met cliënten samenwerken, en welke factoren deze samenwerking versterken of bel…

Nina Baranowska and Gianclaudio Malgieri have published a new blog post on Verfassungsblog: 'Towards a Legal Concept of Digital Well-being: Insights from the EU Commission’s Preliminary Findings on TikTok’s Addictive Design'.

How do people living in a remote part of Northern Mongolia experience the post-socialist transition that occurred twenty years ago? Based on extensive fieldwork, cultural anthropologist Richard Fraser argues that this is not at all clear. In his PhD dissertation, he developed a new framework based on…

Understandably, coronavirus is often viewed from a medical perspective. However, researchers in the social sciences and humanities possess a great deal of expertise that could improve our understanding of the virus outbreak and its impact on society. A new portal is consolidating this knowledge.

Vietnam’s record of expanding access to education, and especially its performance on international assessments such as PISA, has raised questions about what Vietnam got right, how, and why and what insights Vietnam’s experiences might offer for efforts at improving the performance of education systems…

Slavoj Žižek is one of the most prominent public intellectuals of the left. His central claim holds that “today, it is more crucial than ever to continue to question the very foundations of capitalism as a global system”.

Knowledge and culture subproject 4:

Archaeologist Prof Bleda Düring has been awarded a prestigious ERC Advanced Grant for his research on the emergence of social inequalities in the transition from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age in Cyprus. Using excavations, isotope analysis and cultural interpretations, he investigates how and why…

On Friday 17 November at 15.30h Prof. Simon Deakin will give the first seminar of the Reform of Social Legislation Speaker Series

The Developmental and Educational Psychology unit nominated Jiemiao Chen's paper

In a new essay for Ethics & International Affairs, Dr Henning Lahmann, Assistant Professor of International Law & Technology at eLaw, addresses the question whether states should resort to social media to warn a civilian population ahead of military operations.

What is the impact of religion and its discourse on the lives of queer people in countries where LGBTQIA+ individuals are not accepted? University Lecturer Eduardo Alves Vieira wants to know just that. With an NWO-grant, he will take a closer look at the inclusive religion movement in Brazil.

Japanologist and linguist Martine Robbeets is going to use her newly acquired ERC Consolidator Grant to study the origins and spread of Trans-Eurasian languages, which include Japanese and Turkish. With it, she’s tackling one of the most controversial subjects in language history.

After two years of corona restrictions, it was ‘back to normal’ in 2022. Migration, elections, the history of slavery, Russia, and Ukraine were much-discussed topics. We compiled an overview of the most-read news items and other events of the past year.

Japanese was not always the language spoken in Japan. Researchers link the arrival of the language in Japan with the migration of farmers around 400 BC. Linguist Elisabeth de Boer has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to carry out research on the further spread of the language in Japan.

Strategic direction of the Europe Hub lies with a Steering Committee, composed of members from several Leiden University faculties.

Samen met andere studenten bracht Fien Lurvink hulpgoederen naar Oekraïne en nam vluchtelingen mee terug.

From the 19th century, Dutch colonisers on Curaçao relied heavily on the Catholic church. Missionaries provided not only teaching and spiritual care for the Catholic Afro-Caribbeans, they also ensured social order and peace. However, these benefits came at a price. The gap to good education and participation…

The Netherlands has also announced special measures to fight SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. These measures have at times caused questionable behaviour, such as stockpiling or charging exorbitant sums for masks. But the intentions behind this seemingly antisocial behaviour are not necessarily bad, says Professor…

How do you make niche subjects interesting and accessible? Benjamin Suchard, historical linguist and researcher, seems to have created the perfect recipe, which consists of his various projects alongside his regular research, including a Twitter account and a major international film.

Nature, nurture and neural mechanisms of social emotion regulation in childhood

The Business, Technology & Public Policy research group of the Department of Business Sciences at Leiden University focuses on investigating the dynamic interaction between 'new' technologies and various stakeholders, including consumers, employees, and businesses. Our research delves into perceptions,…

James Shires has contributed a chapter to the proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Cyber Conflict (CyCon 2021), which gathers 20 articles from the law, technology and strategy domains.

Assessing Learning in Higher Education addresses what is probably the most time-consuming part of the work of staff in higher education, and something to the complexity of which many of the recent developments in higher education have added. Getting assessment ‘right’– that is, designing and implementing…

This book is the first comparative study of estimative intelligence and strategic surprise in a European context, complementing and testing insights from previous studies centred on the United States. It does extensive empirical analysis of open-source material and interviews in relation to three cases…