Below you can find lists of Leiden-based and international organizations working on Central Asia, and an overview of useful resources on Central Asia.

This 862-page monograph is a grammar of Thangmi, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the districts of Dolakha and Sindhupalcok in central-eastern Nepal.

This project aims at investigating the syntactic role of focus in ellipsis across languages.

LUCAS members are experts in the fields of literary history and theory, film and media studies, and art, architectural, and book history. Members of LUCAS teach in a wide variety of Bachelor's, Master’s, and Research Master’s Programmes.

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This study investigates the syntax and distribution of the two elliptical phenomena Gapping and Fragments, as well as the movements involved in ellipsis contexts in general.

On Energiepodium.nl, Rob de Wijk, Professor of International Relations and Security at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, states that the Nord Stream 2 Project, a pipeline for Russian gas into Europe, causes a conflict between geopolitics and commerce.

This thesis is a sample-based typological study of formal and semantic patterns in terms for a selection of referring (

In this study, the formation of the Tocharian subjunctive is described, its use and meaning are analysed and its origins are investigated.

This study looks at the diverse phonological systems found within Central Chadic, and reconstructs the phonological system of their ancestor language.

This dissertation provides an up to date description of the Indo European lexical stock of Armenian (ca. 500 entries) with systematic inclusion of unused data that are found in Armenian dialects.

This study presents the first systematic investigation and detailed theoretical analysis of the temporal interpretations of sentences with bare (aspectually unmarked) predicates in Mandarin.

A synchronic description of the endangered Slovene dialect spoken in the Gailtal valley in Carinthia, Austria.

Henrike Jansen is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Linguistics.

Rik van Gijn is professor by special appointment of ethnolinguistic vitality and diversity in the world at the Centre for Linguistics. His interests focus on the indigenous languages of South America, and in particular on the question of the historical development of the stunning linguistic diversity…

The master’s programme of Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences at Leiden University examines the research area of bio-pharmaceutical sciences and drug research. It offers seven specialisations ranging from BioTherapeutics to Industrial Pharmacy.

For the twelfth consecutive year, Leiden University College The Hague has been awarded the 'Top Programme' quality label by the Keuzegids Universiteiten 2025. With an impressive overall score of 89 out of 100 points, the Liberal Arts and Sciences: Global Challenges (BA/BSc) programme has earned five…

Tina Cambier-Langeveld is a guest lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics.

This dissertation provides a thorough review of the words belonging to the oldest layer of Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic and answers the question of how these words were adapted to the Proto-Slavic accentual system.

Katinka Zeven is a lecturer at the Centre for Linguistics. Her research focuses on the impact of translation choices on female and racial stereotypes in literary works.

This dissertation investigates the grammar of Makhuwa-Enahara, a Bantu language spoken in the north of Mozambique. The information structure is an influential factor in this language, determining the word order and the use of special conjugations known as conjoint and disjoint verb forms.

This dissertation is a comprehensive description of the Jiăomùzú dialects. These dialects belong to the Tibetan-Birmese language of the rGyalrong spoken in the province Sìchuā, China.

This thesis investigates the syntax of object marking in Sambaa and the Bantu languages in general, with particular focus on Swahili and Haya, as points of comparison.

This dissertation addresses the semantics of pluractional verbs in Hausa.

Anikó Lipták is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Linguistics. She studies syntactic rules in grammar, with special attention to crosslinguistic variation and the interface between syntax and information structure, as well as between syntax and word formation. Currently, her focus is on the structure…

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.

How did common people write in the late eighteenth century? Little is yet known on this topic, since our knowledge is mainly based on printed texts written by a small part of the (male) elite population. This dissertation – written from a sociolinguistic point of view – gives us new insights into late-…

This dissertation provides an account of polar questions in Italian dialects from a typological, theoretical and empirical perspective.

The current project aims to revive the idea that sound inventories are structured according to a small set of universal principles by applying insights from current phonological theory and by making use of modern database technologies and data assessing methodologies.

Marian Klamer is Director PhD programs and Professor of Austronesian and Papuan Linguistics at the Centre for Linguistics. She works on the description and comparison of smaller, under-described Austronesian and Papuan languages in Indonesia, and she studies the history and culture of the populations…

This research project focuses on the extended documentation and investigation of these non-Austronesian (‘Papuan’) languages.

Michaël Peyrot’s research focuses on the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European, in particular the verbal system, and on language contact and prehistory, especially in the Tocharian, Iranian and Indic branches. The leading question is how language contact can be used to draw conclusions about linguistic…

Dr. Janet Grijzenhout (Universität Konstanz) was appointed Professor English Linguistics and will be working at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL).

This dissertation investigates A'-dependencies in Standard German, Zurich German and Dutch where the dislocated constituent is indirectly, i.e. not transformationally, related to the position where it is interpreted. The analysis is carried out within the Principles & Parameters framework.

This dissertation provides a systematic description of English and Afrikaans verbal pseudo-coordination and a formal analysis couched in the Minimalist program.

My research focuses on the role of authenticity in science museums and on measuring the impact of science communication.

Pascale Eskes is a PhD Candidate at the Centre for Linguistics

Gijsbert Rutten has been appointed professor of Dutch Linguistics with effect from 1 July. In this position, he will focus on language change and language variation, with a particular emphasis on historical sociolinguistics.

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

Hilde Gunnink is a linguist specialized in the languages of Southern Africa. Her research focuses on documenting the synchronic structures of African languages, how these developed and changed over time, and what this can tell us about the human past.

Lexicographical description of Greek; production of Greek-Dutch dictionary

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.

Principles of Environmental Sciences provides a comprehensive picture of the principles, concepts and methods that are applicable to problems originating from the interaction between the living and non-living environment and mankind. Both the analysis of such problems and the way solutions to environmental…