As you may know, a draft profile for a broad BA programme in Languages and Cultures has been in development for some time. On 21 December 2021, the Faculty Board decided to end the design process of that broad bachelor’s degree programme. However, as the Faculty Board and partners in the discipline…

Nancy Kula has been Professor of African Linguistics since 1 February. Now is a good time to hear more about her field of expertise and academic interests.

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.

In 2014 Russia entered Ukraine and occupied Crimea, and about two and a half years ago it began a large-scale invasion. For Ukraine, it’s a war. But Russia calls it a ‘special military operation’. Word choices of this kind affect how people look at issues. A Dutch Research Council (NWO) project led…

Attention to the colonial past may be increasing, but many aspects of it are still underexposed. Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, in collaboration with, among others, Leiden researchers Anne-Marieke van der Wal-Rémy and Alicia Schrikker, therefore created a 'Canon of the Dutch Underexposed Past', which…

Lecture, This Time for Africa! series

When Daan van Esch, master’s student in Chinese Studies, travelled through China last summer, he noticed that he often did not understand what the inhabitants of the different villages and cities were talking about. There turned out to be huge differences within the language. He decided to map this…

The lecture halls in the Lipsius were full of curious secondary school students in January. During a special profile selection afternoon, they were introduced to the faculty and language studies. ‘I had no idea that Hebrew and Arabic were similar.’

When university lecturer Martine Bruil was on exchange in Ecuador as a teenager, she fell in love with the area's ancient languages. Now, more than 20 years later, she is starting a research project on the kinship of the language Awapit with the Quechua language that was spread by the Incas.

Lecture, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics (CIEL) Seminars

Professor emeritus Frank Pieke speaks on BBC and BBC Vietnamese about Xi Jinpings ongoing fight against corruption within the Communist Party.

The impact of war extends beyond destroyed buildings and torn families. In bilingual Ukraine, the ongoing war with Russia is a major driver for increasingly discarding the Russian language. What does this mean for the position of Russian in Ukraine?

Communication is the transmission of information. All day long we are busy explaining and making things clear to each other, but exactly how we do that varies from language to language. Associate Professor Jenneke van der Wal delved into African Bantu languages for a Vidi project.

Lecture, SMILE - Experimental Linguistics series

After having been cancelled in 2020, this year the Summer School in Languages and Linguistics is going online. From 12 – 23 July, language and linguistics enthusiasts from all over the world can once again learn about a variety of rare languages and linguistics topics. Director Sasha Lubotsky tells…

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.

Lecture, This Time for Africa! series

In the new video series 'The World of Linguistics', alumni and researchers talk about their passion for their field. Professor of African Linguistics Maarten Mous explains the importance of hearing your language at school.

Lecture, Sociolinguistics & Discourse Studies Series

Lecture, Sociolinguistics & Discourse Studies Series

Conference, Symposium

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.

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.

Last Tuesday, the Herta Mohr building was filled with secondary school pupils. During the profile choice afternoon, they were introduced to various aspects of language studies. 'It’s really exciting to be here.'

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…

Festival