As a graduate of the BA English Language and Culture programme you’ll be very knowledgeable about a language that’s spoken all over the world and of a culture that’s influenced many other countries. With your ability to communicate and present yourself in English, you’ll be ideally qualified for a wide…

On 7 October the beginners course Dutch has successfully started with a pizza kick-off.

On the 12th of February, Cid Swanenvleugel successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Cid on this achievement!

This dissertation contains the further development of a method for linguistic-stylistic research, which provides a systematic means to interpret global impressions of a text through choices in formulation at word- and sentence level.

Phonology is the study of speech sounds within and across languages. It touches topics such as speech sound variation, speech sound combinations and acquisition.

On the 7th of November, Rasmus Thorsø Nielsen successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Rasmus on this achievement!

This volume investigates how loanwords can prove past contact events, taking into consideration ten different regions located in the Philippines, Eastern Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and New Guinea.

On the 15th of April, Shaoyu Wang successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Shaoyu on this achievement!

Multilingualism and Wellbeing is an innovative text that combines sociolinguistic, psychological and philosophical approaches to explore multilingualism as a source of wellbeing. It challenges the “monolingual bias” and the common assumption that multilingualism is solely driven by utilitarian, formal,…

PhD ceremonies in the Academy Building will be much easier for family, friends and other non-specialist audience members to follow after the summer. The Doctorate Board is pleased to have decided that as of 1 September, all Leiden PhD candidates will begin their PhD defence with a lay talk. ‘It can…

This thesis reports on a study that examined the development of L1 teachers’ practical knowledge when they researched and implemented concept-context rich education in an action-research setting.

Data Science & AI student Nataliia Bagan combines a passion for mathematics, language, and artificial intelligence. Her exceptional bachelor’s thesis on improving reasoning in large language models earned her a nomination for the Leiden Science Young Talent Award 2025.

Along with your application, you will have to submit a variety of documents. This information only applies to students who need to submit an application for admission. If you have a diploma that grants you automatic admission to this bachelor’s programme, you won’t need to submit additional document…

An exploration across thirteen essays by critics, translators and creative writers on the modern-day afterlives of Old English, delving into how it has been transplanted and recreated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) has a longstanding tradition in research in the world’s languages and features unique linguistic expertise. At LUCL, we help develop interdisciplinary approaches to linguistic phenomena by facilitating the interaction between data-driven and theory-driven…

This study tests whether behavioural problems at a young age are related to early reading and mathematics development.

University lecturer Lucien van Beek has been awarded a LUF Praesidium Libertatis Grant. He will use the sum of 75,000 euros to research the thinking of people in ancient and prehistoric times. To do that, he will look for unusual or striking metaphors in the earliest Indo-European languages.

Carlotta Rigotti, Postdoc researcher at eLaw, and Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Associate Professor at eLaw, delivered a lecture on AI and non-discrimination, engaging students with the Debiaser demo.

Conference, workshop

Do you have a question about student life in Leiden, studying at Leiden University or do you want more information about the Linguistics master's programme? Chat with a current student to get answers to your questions!

Do you have a question about student life in Leiden, studying at Leiden University or do you want more information about this specific course? You can get in contact with a student from the Linguistics bachelor's programme directly!

Do you have a question about student life in Leiden, studying at Leiden University or do you want more information about the Linguistics master's programme? Chat with a current student to get answers to your questions!

Lecture, CHiLL series

Do you have a question about student life in Leiden, studying at Leiden University or do you want more information about a specific course? You can get in contact with a student from the Linguistics master's specialisation directly!

The Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Arabia (LeiCenSAA) announces a new open access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the epigraphy of Arabia and its cultural and linguistic context: Arabian Epigraphic Notes

This project aims to systematically investigate the influence of information structure on nominal licensing in a subset of Bantu languages.

Tracing Transitional English in the Twelfth Century

The Faculty Board has reappointed Gijsbert Rutten as the Director of Studies for the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics.

On the 8th of March, Bushra Alkhamees successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Bushra on this achievement!

Author Gustaaf Peek, who has been nominated for the Libris Literature Award, studied English Language and Literature in Leiden. ‘I completely submersed myself in literature during my studies, and the effects are still with me today.'

The second major collection of papers from the Bridging the Unbridgeable project.

Workshop & exhibition

Sasha Lubotsky, professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, and Ineke Sluiter, professor of Classical languages and culture, have been appointed members of the Academia Europaea.

Horses were first domesticated in South-West Russia, is the conclusion drawn by an international team of researchers writing in the well-respected journal Nature. Their conclusion resolves a longstanding archaeological question. But, surprisingly enough, this domestication did not contribute to the…

This project studies travel writing about the Dutch East Indies written between 1800 and the end of the Second World War. By analyzing both Dutch travel texts and Indigenous travel texts in Javanese and Malay, it presents a new, double-voiced perspective on (the historiography of) the Dutch colonial…

AI has huge societal and economic potential and is widely used. But it also brings challenges: how do we combine human values with AI, how do we make AI more transparent and understandable, and what can AI and human cognition learn from each other, for example about language learning?

To be eligible for Literature in Society: Europe and Beyond at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

The BA in Linguistics programme builds on Leiden University’s renowned expertise in linguistics. You will benefit from the widest range of linguistic subjects and languages offered by any institute in Europe. During the programme, you can study nearly extinct languages, take part in experimental research…

Neuroscientist Simeen Tabassi Mofrad has been awarded a Rubicon grant to conduct research on cortical and allelic determinants of age-related cognitive decline at University of Oxford. She holds the first rank among all Rubicon applicants in NWO Domain Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH).

The language learning resource centre unites all language teaching professionals working at Leiden University: teachers and researchers at the LUCL, ATC, LUCAS, LIAS, and ICLON. You can find a list of them, ordered by language and/or role, in the menu on the left.

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.

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