From ca. 1540 to 1600, thousands fled the war-stricken Southern Low Countries to the British Isles, Germany, and the Northern Low Countries. Research on this displacement crisis, central to the formation of the Netherlands and Belgium, reflects 21st-century debates on migration and language: language…

To properly understand how babies absorb a language we need to study the process from a number of different perspectives, linguist Claartje Levelt argues. She accepts her appointment as Professor of Language Acquisition on 27 March with an inaugural lecture entitled ‘Language in its infancy’.

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.

In the master’s programme in Dutch Language, Culture and Society at Leiden University you will study the language and culture of the Netherlands from the Dutch Golden Age – the time of Rembrandt and Vondel – until today’s dynamic and muliticultural society.

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

Music profession requires strong reflective, collaborative, creative and improvisational skills, yet prevailing one-to-one tuition in conservatoire education focuses mainly on transmission of craft skills. Examining effects of students' collaborative and experiential learning, as in learning labs, creates…

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…

In Women and Property Rights in Indonesian Islamic Contexts, eight scholars of Indonesian Islam examine women’s access to property in law courts and in village settings.

How can wide-scale applications of isotope analyses and isotope mapping contribute to the identification of ancient migrants and their origins in the Western Caribbean? Can we observe linkages between individual behaviors and long-term patterns, for example as manifested in continuous waves of migration?…

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. The Summer School takes…

Promotor: C.J. ten Cate

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

The main question of this research project concerns the extent to which light verbs in West Germanic languages participate in processes of language change.

With the dramatic growth of the image data on the web, there is an increasing demand of the algorithms capable of understanding the visual information automatically.

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

The invention of neural networks marks a critical milestone in the pursuit of true artificial intelligence. Despite their impressive performance on various tasks, these networks face limitations in learning efficiently as they are often trained from scratch.

-

The Laiseang archiving project ensures the preservation of unique records of languages in the region which have been gathered by more than two dozen linguists at, and in collaboration with Dutch universities over the last 40 years.

This book presents an in-depth grammatical description of Kumzari, a mixed language spoken in remote villages on the Musandam Peninsula in northern Oman.

Preparatory year Leiden

In the Netherlands approximately 130 out of 700 secondary schools offer a bilingual stream. However, research about CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is limited. With her dissertation Evelyn van Kampen (PhD student at ICLON) wants to contribute to the understanding of the nature and range…

This case study demonstrates how to design and effectively deploy a (survey embedded) conjoint experiment.

How are night spaces imagined, produced, experienced and narrated by migrant communities in Europe? This research project considers this question in eight European cities: Aarhus, Amsterdam, Berlin, Cork, Galway, Lisbon, London, Rotterdam. Authorities have historically wrestled with the issue of night-time…

Chinese universities have big ambitions to be among the leading international higher education institutions. What does this mean in terms of opportunities for researchers at the universities of Leiden, Delft and Rotterdam? Staff at the universities recently discussed the issue.

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 aim of this study was to provide insight into how teachers in higher education can be supported in the design, implementation and evaluation of group assignments by developing a theoretical and evidence-based framework for the design of group assignments.

How can the emergence of primary justice systems be facilitated and furthered?

Moritz Jesse, Associate Professor of EU Law at the Europa Institute, has published his book, “The Civic Citizens of Europe: The Legal Potential for Immigrant Integration in the EU, Belgium, Germany, and the United Kingdom”.

In which way and to which extent is integration articulated in concept maps and which factors affect the resulting concept maps? By which factors is the perceived usefulness of such concept maps affected?

Living in China and want to meet other Leiden Alumni? Read about the new Leiden Alumni Chapter in China and join them on LinkedIn and the upcoming events.

In this 3-volume set of primary sources, Lionel Laborie and Ariel Hessayon bring together a wide range of vital sources for the study of prophecy in the early modern world. This meticulously edited collection includes rare material and fascinating manuscripts published in English for the first time.

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.

Alternative perspectives and sources of colonial literature haven’t received much attention before now. School books have long ignored the violence that accompanies colonialsm. How can we paint an honest picture?

This project examines how speakers store and process regular pitch variation.

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:

The Language Learning Resource Centre (Leiden University) is organizing a one-day conference (June 5th, 2020) on the interplay between second language learning practice, theory, and research.