In early modern Europe, as today, men and women with expertise in languages were indispensable to the functioning of societies and economies. The LangPro project will shed new light on these early modern language professionals and on the field that employed them: the language sector.

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.

On the 12th of October, Fatemeh Tabassi Mofrad successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Fatemeh on this achievement!

Are you thinking about studying Arts and Culture: Art History and Museum Studies? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

On the 6th of January, Kefan Bao successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Kefan on this achievement!

Port cities develop at the intersection of international trade and commerce and at the interface between sea and land. What does the future of port cities look like with urbanization, sea level rise, new migrant flows and the disappearance of old industries? This is addressed in the minor (Re)Imagining…

Different ways in which physical environments impacted on the cultural imagination of Greco-Roman antiquity.

The languages of the Mbam-et-Inoubou District of the Centre Region of Cameroon have a unique position in Bantu linguistics. Being in between

Creole languages have long had a bad reputation. They were thought to be simpler than other languages and therefore less worthy of study. Lecturer Benjamin Storme and PhD candidate Tristan Chopinez want to change that perception.

Conference

From 1550 onwards, a great interest in the natural world developed across Europe. This interest was not only stimulated by a growing knowledge of local flora and fauna, but also by the import of numerous exotic animal and plant species. Think, for instance, of researches and collectors like Gessner…

This subproject, carried out by post-doctoral researcher Dr. O. Nieuwenhuyse, investigates changes and continuities in the functional, social and symbolic uses of the material culture, c. 6800-5800 BC. A contextually oriented approach is adopted, which pays attention to the local socio-economic and…

This research cluster aims to analyse and interpret the formation and transmission of Graeco-Roman culture by exploring the relationships between cultural products (texts, objects, practices) and their societal and historical contexts.

This PhD project investigates specific types of allusions used by Russian native speakers, namely references to classical Russian literature. The research includes the analysis of 1) how native speakers use allusions, 2) what type of discourse allusions are frequently used, and 3) how we can implement…

The aim of this thesis was to study the link between hearing loss, language skills, and social functioning in deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children. Sufficient language skills are an essential prerequisite to develop appropriate communication skills, in order to join in conversations with others.…

Ruobin Han defended her thesis on 21 March 2017

This PhD project investigates the argumentative-rhetorical strategies by which the Russian state attempts to substantiate the legitimacy of its war against Ukraine.

This project investigates how sign languages change and spread over time, and how this is influenced by their transmission history.

Before the modern nation-state became a stable, widespread phenomenon throughout northern Europe, multilingualism-the use of multiple languages in one geographical area-was common throughout the region.

This project investigates the languages spoken by elementary school children in Leiden: which languages or varieties do they use, what is their level of competence and in what domains do they use them?

This dissertation is the first comprehensive description of Makalero, a language spoken by approximately 6,500 speakers in the Iliomar subdistrict, in the south-east of the Republic of East Timor. While previous sources considered it to be a dialect of the larger language Makasae, the present study,…

Course, summer school

The pews of the Walloon Church were filled on Friday 23 May, as more than 120 former students of the French Language and Culture programme gathered to attend mini-lectures, a short theatre performance, and a discussion about the state of the discipline.

Modern Japanese culture can best be described in one word: cute. Hello Kitty, the most important symbol of cuteness, can be found in all layers of society. Leiden Japanologists Ivo Smits and Kasia Cwiertka put together a volume of articles on this curious phenomenon.

This PhD project investigates how grammatical features and lexical elaboration in Fulfulde Juguureere reflect aspects of cattle culture.

One of the ways of understanding another culture better is to examine what people experience when they read a text, or look at an image. Leiden experts have a lot of knowledge in this field, for example on culture in ancient Japan.

The Laiseang archiving project ensures the preservation of unique records of languages in the region which have been gathered by more than two dozen linguists at, and in collaboration with Dutch universities over the last 40 years.

This book presents an in-depth grammatical description of Kumzari, a mixed language spoken in remote villages on the Musandam Peninsula in northern Oman.

This thesis describes the use of the evolutionary approach in the study of language change, aiming to provide a better insight in the mechanisms that play a role in language change and to validate this approach in the field of language change.

Hekmat Dirbas defended his thesis on 14 February 2017

This project investigates language choice and language use among Swiss mercenaries in the VOC and in the Dutch Colonial Army.

On 30 January 2024 Jurre van der Meer successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

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.