A fascinating description of a global language, A Grammar of Mandarin by Jeroen Wiedenhof combines broad perspectives with illuminating depth.

This volume offers a multidisciplinary view of cutting-edge research on bilingualism in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking regions, with the aim of building a bridge between sub-fields and approaches that often find themselves isolated from one another.

Lexicographical description of Greek; production of Greek-Dutch dictionary

This thesis discusses the development in Proto–Indo–European, Latin and Romance of a word–formation pattern which the most adequate terminology in use dubs ‘verbal government compounds with a governing first member’; I use the shorthand ‘pickpocket compounds’.

At LUCL, researchers aim to understand, describe, and preserve the linguistic diversity of the indigenous Americas.

Languages of The Hague is a collection of columns on languages and language which were published between 2016 and 2018 in the weekly newspaper Den Haag Centraal.

One of ECSL’s most successful activities is the ECSL Summer Course on Space Law and Policy, which is open to students of all levels of study, as well as a few young professionals already working in the space or space-related sectors. The course is now in its 28th year and boasts a large family of alumni…

The aim of this research was to establish if Ebeling's semiotactic theory and method of semiotactic analysis, as described in his works Syntax and Semantics (1978), Een Inleiding tot de Syntaxis (1994) and Semiotaxis, over Theoretische en Nederlandse Syntaxis (2006), could be applied to Modern Japanese…

The Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court competition was held in Vienna between 8 and 12 April 2024. This event was organised by the European Centre for Space Law in collaboration with the University of Vienna. The team comprised David Eagleson, Solène Flambeaux and Aleksandra Spyra, current students…

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.

Two book launches

On Thursday 24 May 2018, Tanja Masson-Zwaan of Leiden University’s International Institute of Air and Space Law and Prof Mahulena Hofmann of the University of Luxembourg had the honour of addressing the King and Queen of the Netherlands and the Grand-Duc and Grand-Duchess of Luxembourg during the State…

Recently, Engin Yüksel gave a lecture on Russian military concepts from 1853 to the present day and his observations on the Russo-Ukrainian war at the Faculty of Humanities, premised on his recently completed doctoral research.

Russian literature is awash with disputes, riots and intense political debates. In the new Dutch podcast Schandaal en Controverse in de Russische literatuur, senior lecturer Otto Boele and film maker and journalist Kay Mastenbroek discuss the most talked-about Russian books published in the past two…

With the rise of AI, interest in computational linguistics and language models has taken flight. But machines are far from being able to go it alone. In her inaugural lecture, Professor Carole Tiberius will stress the importance of research on word combinations. ‘We know a great deal but there is a…

This book offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to a novel theory of syntax, which analyzes grammar from a semantic perspective.

On the 6th of July, Anthony Jakob successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Anthony on this achievement!

This is a study of Plateau Shimakonde, a sub-dialect of the Makonde language which is spoken on the Makonde Plateau in northern Mozambique.

This dissertation focuses on the question how text and paratext contribute to the way that text in a network-like environment is clearly bordered and at the same time can easily be linked to other texts.

This thesis presents a thorough survey of the central aspects of the phonology of Shaoxing Chinese from a synchronic perspective and on the basis of recent theoretical phonological developments, with the secondary goal of casting some light on current issues in Modern Chinese (Mandarin).

Alanna O'Malley, Associate Professor at Leiden University Institute for History, talks about the possible expelling of the Russian ambassador Yuriy Filatov and the risks that come with the decision.

Prof. J. (Jos) Schaeken, Professor of Slavic and Baltic Languages and Cultural History, will be the interim Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities from 1 March 2025. He will succeed the present Vice-Dean, Mirjam de Baar, who will complete her second term on that date.

Over several decades, a variety of computational methods for drug discovery have been proposed and applied in practice. With the accumulation of data and the development of machine learning methods, computational drug design methods have gradually shifted to a new paradigm, i.e. deep learning methods…

This dissertation sheds light on politics, education and linguistic identity by studying the case of the College of Jerusalem, founded by the Brothers of the Christian Schools.

This thesis investigates durational aspects of the Italian mobile diphthongs with respect to other rising diphthongs and monophthongs and it shows to what extent the monophthong/diphthong alternation still occurs in contemporary Italian.

This dissertation provides a grammatical description of the Awjila language, a small Berber language spoken in the Libyan oasis of Awjila.

When researching languages in historical context, our goal is to understand the nature of linguistic variation in the past, and explain the extent to which the socio-cultural context of bygone times contributed to shaping linguistic variation and change.

The present study comprises a classification and analysis of the syntax of the non-verbal clause in Qumran Hebrew, i.e. the linguistic variety (or varieties) found in the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls. The corpus consists of the non-biblical texts written in Hebrew; biblical texts and texts written in…

Making extensive use of primary source materials this study contributes to existing scholarship in the field of eighteenth-century grammars and grammarians by providing an in-depth study of Ash’s Grammatical Institutes and its influence on other popular grammars for children.

A team of students from the Advanced LL.M. in Air and Space Law represented Leiden University at the Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition. The European regional rounds of the competition took place at the headquarters of the European Space Agency in Paris, France from 1 to 3 April 2025 and…

Students greatly benefit from an interdisciplinary learning environment that makes connections with various stakeholders and tackles real-world challenges. This environment allows them to produce innovative and impactful results. As part of their studies, students from the International Institute of…

On the 23rd of January, Anastasiia Ionova successfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Anastasiia on this achievement.

Professor of Sociohistorical Linguistics Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade was appointed Knight in the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands on 11 September in her home city of The Hague. Deputy Mayor Bert van Alphen presented her with the decoration.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has approved the proposal for gravitational wave detector LISA. The launch for the space detector is planned in 2034. ‘A dream that comes true,’ says astronomer Elena Maria Rossi.

Jos Schaeken has just published a book entitled 'Stemmen op berkenbast. Berichten uit middeleeuws Rusland: dagelijks leven en communicatie'.

In prehistoric times there was a huge wave of migration, from the steppes in Russia and Ukraine to West Europe. The newcomers’ genes began to dominate. Archaeology research in Leiden into burial mounds in the Veluwe and Utrechtse Heuvelrug areas of the Netherlands yielded this spectacular conclusion.…