The Leiden HANDS!Lab for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies hosts research activities in the area of sign language linguistics and Deaf studies, with a focus on Africa. In addition to various research projects, we have our Deaf studies lecture Series in International Sign and offer various regular and…

On the 27th of February, Marta Morgado successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Marta on this achievement!

Conference

I am professor emeritus of Animal Behaviour. I study a broad range of topics in Animal Behaviour and Animal Cognition, but have a prime interest in the development and processing of vocalizations in birds. In comparative research I examine similarities and differences between avian vocalizations and…

This monograph by dr. Kim Beerden compares Greek divination to divinatory practices in Neo-Assyrian Mesopotamia and Republican Rome.

The Construction of an Imaginary Acoustic Space, a new work by ACPA PhD Candidate Gabriel Paiuk was premiered last Saturday at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg. The piece was commissioned by the österreichisches ensemble für neue musik for their second yearly concert series.

Manolis Fragkiadakis is a PhD candidate at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics.

Lecture, Com(parative) Syn(tax) Series

Legibility in the Age of Signs and Machines offers a compelling reflection on what the notion of legibility entails in a machinic world in which any form of cultural expression – from literary texts, films, artworks and museum exhibits to archives, laws, computer programs and algorithms – necessarily…

The history of sign languages of deaf people is severely understudied. The historical linguistics of sign languages offers a fundamentally new perspective on the history of human languages. This project addresses the dearth of knowledge about historical sign language linguistics through a large-scale…

Inocêncio Joao Raul Zandamela is a deaf PhD candidate at the Centre for Linguistics. He is pursuing his degree in research on Sign Language Linguistics and Deaf Studies. He holds a Master’s degree in Science of Education from College of St. Rose, New York- US and a Bachelor’s degree in Education from…

In this project, the hypothesis that language contact crucially impacts the development of spatial grammar and phonology is investigated.

Adrien Dadone is a researcher at the Centre for Linguistics. He is deaf and comes from France. He is in Leiden for a two-year postdoctoral fellowship. Adrien's research focuses on the emergence of sign languages and phenomena of contact with coverbal gestures. He is also interested in studying sign…

Promotor: Prof.dr. M.A.G.J. Orrit

Victoria Nyst is associate professor linguistics whose research interests include historical sign language studies, sign language documentation & description, sign language technology, lexicography, linguistic iconicity, and the gesture-sign language interface. She also works with the Africa Studies…

Currently the focus of the project is the development of a tool that utilizes dimensionality reduction techniques in order to analyze and interpret the lexical and phonological variation between different sign languages. Additionally, the application of deep learning techniques for the extraction of…

Geometric phases lead to a nontrivial interference result when an electron's different quantum mechanical paths choices encircle a magnetic coil in an Aharonov-Bohm experiment.

On the 23rd of November, Angoua Tano succesfully defended his PhD-thesis and graduated. LUCL congratulates Tano on this great result.

Victoria Nyst's love for sign language was sparked when she accidentally ended up at a deaf school while studying African linguistics. The university lecturer has since been awarded a Vici grant to research the history of these languages.

In this dissertation, electrophysiological (EEG) and behavioural measures are used to investigate how allophonic tonal variants and sub-phonemic features are processed during Mandarin and Dutch speech production, visual processing of written words and reading aloud.

Will Leiden be the first city to have wall poems in sign language? It will, if sign language researcher Victoria Nyst has her way. She recently started a crowdfunding campaign together with the Leiden Language Museum and the TEGEN-BEELD Foundation.

For his PhD project, computer scientist Manolis Fragkiadakis is developing a tool that can compare videos of sign language corpora. This would make it possible to detect differences between sign languages and prevent translation errors. Ultimately, the tool could be used to compare sign languages from…

Promotor: C.J. ten Cate, Co-promotor: H.W. Slabbekoorn

On the 16th of December, Yachan Liang successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Yachan on this achievement!

What do you do when you never got the chance to sign your name in the Sweat Room after graduation? Alumni Brantly Hancock and Kent Moore from the U.S. emailed the alumni officer with a request and came back to Leiden two years after graduation, to finally sign: “It’s a good feeling!”

Do natural soundscapes affect migratory decisions of fishes moving up and down rivers and is this process disturbed by vessel sounds?

In a longitudinal study, Eichengreen and colleagues explored how the certain aspects of emotional intelligence impact the development of adolescents’ mental health, thus identifying potential warning signs and targets for intervention programs. Despite a higher risk for mental health issues and lesser…

What do you do when you never got the chance to sign your name in the famous Leiden ‘Zweetkamertje’, the Sweat Room, after graduation? Alumna Maria Juliana Tenorio from Colombia emailed her faculty alumni officer with the request to sign the wall of the Sweat Room. Eight years ago, she was unable to…

Like spoken languages, sign languages evolve organically and do not always have the same origin. This produces different ways of communication and annotation. Manolis Fragkiadakis wrote his PhD thesis on this.

Computer scientist Tessa Verhoef received a Best Paper Award during the ‘ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility’. The paper emphasised the need for interdisciplinary research in sign language processing. The authors state that linguists and computer scientists should collaborate with…

LUGO is setting up an online network for students from Leiden University that are interested in sustainability.

In February 2026, Leiden University’s new Sport Centre opened on a prominent new site directly on the Campusplein. Its relocation brings sport visibly into the heart of campus life, with the outdoor fields seamlessly connected to the building. Substantially larger than its predecessor, the centre offers…

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Professor Corinne Hofman of the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University and Professor Albert Feilzer from the Academic Centre for Dentistry (ACTA), University of Amsterdam and VU University, Amsterdam.

On October 31st, Margarita Gulian succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Margarita on this great result.

Anthropogenic noise has been shown to affect marine animals in various ways, this may have fitness consequences at individual and population level. This thesis aims to increase insight into the quantification of sound-induced behavioural responses that are relevant to fitness, and into factors that…

Animal Sciences’ contributions to the Biodiversity & Evolution research theme include evo-devo research, the evolution of cognitive and behavioural traits, and the evolutionary mechanisms of stress adaptation. This research involves both indoor and outdoor studies.

Animal Sciences’ contributions to the Development & Disease research theme include the mechanisms and evolution of embryonic development, the development of cognitive mechanisms, and animal models for understanding mechanisms of human disease.

Promotor: Carel J. ten Cate, Co-Promotor: Hans W. Slabbekoorn

On Friday 7 December 2019, the International Institute of Air and Space Law (IIASL) of Leiden University signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) to further collaborative work on the promotion of the Cape Town Convention…

Recently a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) - Leiden University and the Mulawarman university in Samarinda, Kalimatan province, Indonesia. The MOU will be effective for a period of five years and covers the intention to collaborate in…

This dissertation aims at discussing the nature and the linguistic factors assumed responsible for speech intelligibility problems of Sudanese learners of English.

Promotor: M.A.G.J. Orrit

This thesis investigates the connection between tonal realization and tone change (tone sandhi) in Wenzhou Chinese, and whether and how such a connection is conditioned by prosodic structure and focus marking.

If, as the works of John Cage suggest, there is “no such thing as silence,” then what are the markers that show us we are experiencing silence? - what are the performative cues during musical silence? - what are the auditory and visual bookends of silence in performance, i.e. what anticipates and…

A seven-metre glass tunnel, filled with running water, and equipped with speakers and cameras. An artificial river for investigating what light and sound pollution do to migrating fish.

Dr. Mikihiro Moriyama was born in Kyoto, Japan in 1960. He first came to Leiden for a year in 1988, and then stayed from 1992 to 1995 and was back again in June 2003 for his PhD. 'I’d never heard of the Sweat Room until I heard about it at a Leiden alumni meeting in Jakarta. When I visited Leiden in…

An overview of our infrastructure at the SPP division:

For many deaf Ghanaians, Ghanaian Sign Language is their first language. But for more deaf signers to be able to fully participate in society, more sign language interpreters, deaf school teachers and family members need to be trained. What better way to facilitate this by means of a Ghanaian Sign Language…