About 90 per cent of Austronesian and Papuan languages are under threat of soon becoming extinct. Marian Klamer is the only professor in the world who researches both these language groups. She records languages before they disappear and sheds new light on the history of Indonesia. Inaugural lecture…

To what extent does using 360 immersion to a speaking task change the elicited speech, compared to conditions with 2D presentations?

An in-depth history of Large Language Models—and what their ubiquity, disruption, and creativity mean from a wider sociopolitical perspective.

This is a Special Issue of the peer-reviewed 'Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics (DuJAL)’, which focuses on promoting Dutch and Belgian work in applied linguistics among an international audience, but also welcomes contributions from other countries.

This project creates a comprehensive audiovisual documentation of the Sanye language, the sociolinguistic situation, and cultural practices of the Sanye (Dahalo) community in coastal Kenya.

On the 13th of November, Hanna Fricke successfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Hanna on this achievement.

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

On the 26th of September, Cosmas Rai Amenorvi successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Cosmas on this achievement!

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

On December 18th, Viktorija Kostadinova succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Viktorija on this great result.

This dissertation provides an overview of the phonological developments of the Qinghai-Gansu languages, comparing them to the reconstructed ancestral language.

The Special Issue of the European Journal of Applied Linguistics on ‘Language Ideologies: Old Questions, New Perspectives’ aims to offer diverse insights on language ideologies with a focus on methodological and theoretical questions.

This thesis aims at contributing to our understanding of the semantic and prosodic properties of object foci in Greek, employing theoretical and experimental tools.

This research profile area brings together descriptive, historical and theoretical linguistics, as well as psycho- and neurolinguistics.

Leiden University has introduced the training program for the Basic Qualification in Education (BKO). This is mandatory and has been made available for (university) teachers and professors to obtain a BKO certificate, depending on the timing, scope, and duration of their employment.

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.

Across cultures, parents help their children master the social and linguistic codes needed in adult life. Recent research on language socialization found important cross-cultural differences, pointing out the need for more diversity for a full understanding of this process.

On the 16th of September, Bert van Pinxteren successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Bert on this achievement!

Across cultures, parents help their children master the social and linguistic codes needed in adult life. Recent research on language socialization found important cross-cultural differences, pointing out the need for more diversity for a full understanding of this process. Deaf communities form…

From Tuesday 6 January till Tuesday 15 January 2026, NVIC organizes a new edition of the TAFL course. This intensive, interactive course is developed for (future) teachers of Arabic. It addresses both the practical aspects of teaching Arabic as a foreign language as well as the underlying linguistic…

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.

My research addresses the function of the much-debated particle -nā in Biblical Hebrew, often translated with “please”, from the point of view of the most important ancient Bible translations (Greek, Syriac, Latin). It combines textual criticism, translation technique, discourse pragmatics, and the…

This PhD project investigates what the universal and variable morphosyntactic properties of linguistic expressions of otherness are and how they can be modelled theoretically.

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

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?

The Leiden Summer School in Languages and Linguistics offers a varied program of specialised courses in Descriptive linguistics, in Chinese, Germanic, Indo-European, Indian, Iranian, Semitic languages and linguistics, as well as a number of introductory linguistic courses. Registration opens around…

Humans can see the world through the eyes of other humans and imagine what they know, want, and intend. This competence is known as Theory of Mind.

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.

Preparatory year Leiden

Are you planning to register for an English taught Master’s Degree Programme after your Bachelor’s programme? In order to assess what your current level of English is, you are invited to complete an Online Oxford Quick Placement Test.

The Leiden Summer School in Language and Linguistics is visited every year by many scholars worldwide. Four of the 120 participants of the 7th Summer School in 2012, share their view of Leiden.

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

The CNaVT exam is the official, international exam of Dutch as a Foreign Language for all who learn Dutch all over the world. The Catholic University of Leuven organizes the exam. The Dutch Language Union has commissioned this collaboration.

Anyone who creates a page for a magazine, a PowerPoint presentation, a brochure, a poster or dreams up an idea for an infographic is faced with important questions:

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

Hekmat Dirbas defended his thesis on 14 February 2017

Research has shown that the impact of feedback can be very powerful on second language acquisition. However, how to provide adaptive feedback on speaking skills in foreign languages and how to provide differentiated support in secondary schools in regular secondary schools classes of often 25-30 students?…

The new cabinet threatens to cut nearly a billion euros from higher education. This not only endangers academic work, it is a disaster for the Netherlands itself. The proposed penalty on study extensions and other financial measures will heavily impact students and will reduce education accessibility.…

The goal of the MODOMA-project is to create a computer model of language acquisition.

The main goal of this project is to answer the question: how did Dutch acquire its own, distinctive linguistic characteristics?