The scientists at Babylab Leiden ensure that important knowledge is gathered about how babies learn to understand the world around them. Meet our Babylab Team and get to know our researchers!

Police investigations use wiretapped phone recordings as investigative material fairly regularly. But how do they know that the voice on the recording actually belongs to the suspect? PhD student Laura Smorenburg is trying to answer that question.

The AAM-LR project aims at building a demonstrator of a web service that will help filed researchers to annotate audio- and video-recordings.

Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) is a reputable institute in the field of linguistics, offering excellent research and education opportunities covering a broad range of languages of the world.

Syntacticians study how words combine into larger units (phrases and sentences) in human languages and how the combinatorial possibilities determine word order and grammatical relations between parts of a sentence.

If you’ve graduated from the programme and you want to further your academic education you can continue with a master’s programme. It will earn you the title of Master of Arts (MA) and significantly increase your chances of finding a position at academic level.

What is your preferred career path? Would you like to teach? Do you enjoy doing research? Or would you prefer a job that involves writing and editing? Your Linguistics degree provides excellent preparation for a wide range of career paths.

At LUCL we study almost all aspects of a wide range of African languages. From phonology to anthropological linguistics, from theoretical syntax to urban youth languages, we study it all.

In the specialisation in Modern Languages you will explore the structure, acquisition, history and use of one or more of these five languages in depth: Chinese, English, French, German and/or Italian.

Innovation through repetition. That is how university lecturer Jurriaan Witteman describes his research on the automatic processing of angry voices in the brain. The original research was conducted 20 years ago, but, with an NWO grant, Witteman is now going to see if those results are accurate.

Last Friday, during the ELS Academy Annual Event, Loran Kostense (VU), Sofia de Jong (Leiden University), Rieneke Stelma-Roorda (VU) and Anne Verboom (Leiden University) were awarded a €5000 research grant to carry out research on comparing the method of case law reviews versus court file studies. In…

Terms used by literary critics in characterizing the style of novels are often impressionistic (‘baroque’, ‘austere’, ‘vivid’, ‘cerebral’ etc.). Foundations for such evaluations are usually not provided. A scientific way of studying and explaining style is lacking in present day Dutch Studies. Suzanne…

What categories exist in the languages of pastoralists? Do these semantic concepts reflect universal or languagespecific tendencies? What (environment? culture?) governs the similarities (or the differences) attested crosslinguistically in cattle colour systems?

On invitation by prof. Nikita Lyutov (Kutafin State Law University Moscow), Beryl ter Haar participated in a kick-off meeting on a comparative research paper on the free movement of workers within the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union held by Kutafin State Law University on the 24th of January 2019…

Endangered languages can survive if they are taught properly to new speakers, such as people with a migrant background. This is what Professor by Special Appointment Felix Ameka will say in his inaugural lecture on 30 September. Dutch people can do their bit by being less ‘polite’ to people whose mother…

Knowledge and culture subproject 2:

The Trojan War plays an important role in Greek mythology. But there is much more to Troy than mythology. The exhibition ‘Troy. City. Homer. Turkey’ can be viewed from 7 December to 5 May 2013. Leiden linguist Alwin Kloekhorst wrote an article for the exhibition catalogue on the language of Troy.

This project looks at how the native language influences processing mechanisms of non-native language(s) as well has how it influences brain structure and functional connectivity.

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.

Morphology is the grammar of words. Morphologists study how words are built and what principles govern their form and their function.

Bringing together scholars from a broad range of theoretical perspectives, The Language of Argumentation offers a unique overview of research at the crossroads of linguistics and theories of argumentation.

Collaborative linguistic research on indigenous languages of Ecuador: description, documentation & materials

Find out how to apply for Linguistics at Leiden University by following our step-by step guide.

The research programme Language Use in Past and Present brings together linguists within LUCL whose central focus is both on actual language data, including language use in earlier stages of the language, and, taking a variationist perspective, on language change in various aspects.

Study information

Study information

This year marks a special occasion because it was just ten years ago that the Georgian language was taught for the first time at Leiden University. It is even more exciting that its first professor, Ramaz Kurdadze, will return to Leiden this year to teach students interested in the language. Kurdadze…

This project aims to investigate the underlying (neurocognitive) linguistic processes of ellipsis resolution, particularly gapping.

The goal of this study is to systematically investigate how intonation (speech melody) is conveyed in whispered speech.

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

On November 22nd, Morana Lukač succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Morana on this great result.

On the 12th of May, Rita Barrera Virhuez-Eloranta successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Rita Barrera Virhuez-Eloranta on this achievement.

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.

El proyecto consta de la creación de un libro infantil con contenido de leyendas y cuentos andinos kichwas andinos, con realidad virtual aumentada, que fomente el aprendizaje y activación hacia la lengua kichwa de manera oral y escrita a los niños y niñas, mediante la interacción con padres y/o tutores. El…

The Centre for Digital Humanities is pleased to announce that we are searching for two PhD Candidates who will carry out research within the Centre for Digital Humanities and the Leiden Centre of Data Science.

Under what circumstances is politicization more likely to occur than others, and what impact does politicization have on government legitimacy and performance?

The main aim of this project is to provide a full analysis of the actual influence of French on Dutch in The Netherlands during the period of 1500 - 1900.

Studying Sumerian grammar in your free time: Bram Jagersma did it. He described centuries-old Sumerian using a modern method he devised himself. For this PhD research he was awarded the De La Court Award for Independent Research by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science (KNAW).

To be eligible for Linguistics at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.