A synchronic description of the endangered Slovene dialect spoken in the Gailtal valley in Carinthia, Austria.

This PhD project investigates the argumentative-rhetorical strategies by which the Russian state attempts to substantiate the legitimacy of its war against Ukraine.

What can languages spoken in the Lesser Sunda Islands today tell us about the histories of its various population groups?

This thesis describes the use of the evolutionary approach in the study of language change, aiming to provide a better insight in the mechanisms that play a role in language change and to validate this approach in the field of language change.

Publishing about your research is a key aspect of your career as a researcher; the majority of research publications are written in English. When applying for research funding, too, it is very important to ensure that your application is written in clear, accessible English. Maria Sherwood-Smith, Academic…

The form and content of the course are determined by your answers on the intake form and, if necessary, an intake interview.

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…

At LUCL, researchers have established the Leiden Hands!Lab for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies.

This thesis presents a detailed description of the phonology, the tone system and the grammar of Liko, a Bantu language spoken by about 70,000 people in the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It provides numerous examples.

This dissertation aims to explore how university students use mobile technology for their self-directed language learning and investigate factors influencing their self-directed learning with mobile technology.

This study presents a full descriptive account of the grammar of Mualang, covering the major features of phonology and morphosyntax as well as issues related to pragmatics.

Interested in our GTGC programme? Read more here in other languages.

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.

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.

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…

The languages of the Mbam-et-Inoubou District of the Centre Region of Cameroon have a unique position in Bantu linguistics. Being in between

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

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.

On the 19th of February, Mariana Martins successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Mariana on this achievement!

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

This project aims to develop a portable, real-time intelligent system tailored for speech disorder therapy.

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

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

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

In this article, the authors summarise the literature on the effects of multilevel governance on governments’ policy responses to Covid-19.

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

The first of the two volumes of this co-authored study has just been published by Metzler. The study explores the history of the concept ‘barbarism’ from the 18th century to the present and illuminates its foundational role in modern European and Western identity.

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

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

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.

A mixed qualitative/quantitative approach to medieval disability aids using both literary and artistic sources.

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.

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…

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?

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.

This month, the volume Reading Russian Literature, 1980-2024, edited by Otto Boele and Dorine Schellens, was published at Palgrave Macmillan.