Maarten Mous, Professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University, looks back on the 50th edition of the Colloquium of African Languages and Linguistics (CALL) and explains why this birthday was a celebration like no other.

A large interdisciplinary NWO research project attempted to discover the cognitive origin of the human ability to learn linguistic rules. This is not so simple, according to linguist Andreea Geambaşu and her colleagues. PhD defence on 11 December.

A newly opened museum in China appears to be devoted to the origins of the Austronesian-speaking peoples, who some 5000 years ago spread from East Asia across the Pacific, seeding it with a distinctive culture and some 1200 languages. But those displays are also a statement in the long-running dispute…

On 5 October, Katherine Filesia defended the thesis 'Speaking the same language: the introduction of the Anglo-American trust into the Dutch legal system'. The doctoral research was supervised by Pim Huijgen and Frans Sonneveldt.

How might viola and string quartet playing in the performer-centered, moment-to-moment and communicative style heard on early recordings be brought about today?

De Regenboog primary school in The Hague has a high percentage of children whose first language is not Dutch. In the ‘Children of the City’ project, Education and Child Studies students help primary school children practise their Dutch.

According to Russian propaganda Ukrainians are Nazis and people from the West are Satanists. Egbert Fortuin thinks we should take this propaganda seriously.

How would you convert Egyptian hieroglyphs into Latin script? And what is actually the correct translation of dishes on a Vietnamese menu? On Saturday 28 January, high school students from all over the Netherlands will come to Leiden to ponder a series of language-related puzzles. Their goal? To win…

Leiden University will continue to offer its BA in Italian Language and Culture. The Board of the Faculty of Humanities has reversed its decision to stop admitting new students as of the 2026/2027 academic year.

When we read a text, we think we know who wrote it, but in the early modern period, manuscript production was often a collaborative or ‘socialised’ enterprise involving secretaries and scribes who physically wrote what the author dictated.

In this research, for the first time a detailed description as well as systematic and comparative analysis of the final particle system in Chinese are provided.

The Leiden Summerschool in Languages and Linguistics, including courses in Papyrology, is now open. BA/MA/PhD students are welcome to attend.

Important note: upon careful consideration, we have decided to resume our Dutch language courses.

-

Conference

Man is nature's mind-reading champion: we are better able than any other living beings to empathise with others. This comes in part from our story-telling culture, according to Max van Duijn. PhD defence 20 April.

What is lobbying? How does it work? Starting February 2 Leiden University professors, Jaap de Jong and Arco Timmermans will introduce high school students to the language of lobbying. Digital classes together with a teacher's kit will be available in Dutch from February.

Our courses September courses start soon, be sure to apply in time

Exploring the language of the lower classes in the nineteenth century

Tonal bilinguals of two closely related Chinese dialects are amazing people. They handle two tonal systems in their mind; their two vocabularies are from closely related dialects, and they write translation equivalents with common Chinese characters. Their unique language situation makes their mind…

This study proposes a theory for the encoding of specificity and definiteness in the Chinese nominal based on Cantonese, Mandarin and Wenzhou data.

Students with learning problems experience difficulties in reading, writing, and content-area learning into and throughout their secondary-school years

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

As of 1 May 2025, Professor Kartica van der Zon has been appointed professor by special appointment of Family Law, Law of Persons and Juvenile Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen.

Erik-Jan Zürcher, professor of Turkish languages and cultures, returns his Turkish medal to protest against the repressive regime of Erdogan's government.

How do teachers conceptualise, develop and implement an effective CLIL practice?

This dissertation assesses the influence of British Celtic on the phonological development of English during and shortly after the Anglo-Saxon settlement period, ca. AD 450-700.

What is the cost of visual complexity? This dissertation sets out to determine the effect of the complexity of word formation on the legibility of Arabic and the role that vocalization plays in reading.

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).

The Feature Co-occurrence Constraint theory proposed in this dissertation provides a means to capture the development of the language learning child's segment inventory.

Conference

This study examines the mutual intelligibility between all 225 pairs of 15 Chinese dialects, in two main branches, i.e., six Mandarin dialects and nine non-Mandarin (Southern) dialects.

This dissertation provides a description of Makonde, a Bantu language spoken in Tanzania.

This study investigates the perception and production of emotional prosody by native and non-native listeners and speakers, i.e. Chinese and Dutch listeners and speakers, including Dutch L2 learners of Chinese.

In close collaboration with the Center for Medieval Studies (Fordham), Centre for Medieval literature (Odense and York) and Centre for Medieval Studies (York), the University of Ghent organizes an Autumn School for PhD- and MA-students in Medieval Studies (18-22 October 2021). It will be organized in…

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 explores the history of the language of a manuscript known as Tönnies Fonne's Russian-German Phrasebook (Pskov 1607).

Digital edition of the correspondence between the philosopher Gerardus Johannes Petrus Josephus (Gerard) Bolland (1854-1922) and the philologist Pieter Jacob Cosijn (1840-1899), consisting of 46 letters covering the period 1879 to 1899.