Italian Language and Linguistics at Leiden University draws on diachronic and synchronic perspectives to bring you an advanced qualification in Italian linguistics.

German Language and Linguistics at Leiden University offers in-depth knowledge of German linguistic theory and practice.

The study of language in change.

The research master’s programme in Linguistics at Leiden University combines leading expertise with a flexible programme format.

The master’s programme in Dutch linguistics at Leiden University provides you with a deep understanding of the Dutch language and the multifaceted research into the structure and use of the Dutch language. During the programme you will not only gain in-depth knowledge of Dutch linguistics, but also…

French Language and Linguistics at Leiden University offers a wide array of courses covering theoretical and applied linguistics, including language acquisition, syntax, and semantics.

English Language and Linguistics at Leiden University focuses on English language usage and linguistics around the world, including in countries where English is spoken as a second language or as part of a mixed language.

How do old and new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) relate to new social and political movements in Central Africa? What does this tell us about Africa and the Information Age?

The aim of the project is to unravel the genetic and contact relations between the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica (Mexico and western Central America) and the Middle Andes region (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia), as part of a larger endeavor to understand the historical process of the peopling of the Americas…

Study information, Online Experience

Platform for research about heritage languages spoken in the Netherlands

Are you thinking about studying Linguistics Research MA? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

This dissertation investigates the interaction of aspect and subjectivity in modal constructions.

Study information

Loneliness and social isolation have become a significant problem in contemporary Japan. The financial burden associated with an ageing population has severely constrained the ability of local authorities to address the problem. As a result, policymakers have sought cost‐effective methods of tackling…

Psycholinguistic research

Together with Knud Andresen, Bart van der Steen recently published a volume titled A European Youth Revolt. European Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social Movements in the 1980s.

Book by Soledad Valdivia Rivera

The research programme Formal Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics brings together LUCL researchers who focus mainly on formal theoretical and experimental linguistics.

Describing a new language for the first time is an exciting and challenging intellectual experience.

There are over 7,000 languages in the world and over half of the world’s population is bilingual. But how do all these people use their language? And how do these languages differ from one another? Under the slogan of ‘Interconnecting linguistic diversity,’ the researchers from the Leiden University…

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

This article assesses Russian rhetoric toward Ukraine from 2004 to 2019 by analyzing statements by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Humanities, Centre for Linguistics

Investigating specific language and speech behaviour of people.

The Hague Program for Cyber Norms, a research program at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, published its second policy brief, in which Dennis Broeders, Liisi Adamson and Rogier Creemers explore aspects of the relationship between China and Russia in cyberspace.

On December 5th, Matthias Pache succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Matthias on this great result.

Deepfakes are videos that have been manipulated to replace one person’s likeness with that of another. They can be difficult to distinguish from authentic videos. In our study, we found that people who score high on conspiracy thinking and people who use social media more are better at distinguishing…

The aim of this thesis was to study the link between hearing loss, language skills, and social functioning in deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children. Sufficient language skills are an essential prerequisite to develop appropriate communication skills, in order to join in conversations with others.…

This edited book presents case-studies and reflections on the role of languages and their analytic study in development practices across four regions: Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific.

This project combines an extensive new open database on linguistic distributions, spatial modelling and areal linguistics in order to disentangle the roles of social and environmental factors on the emergence of linguistic diversity patterns of South America.

This open access book brings together an eclectic cast of scholars in related disciplines to examine ageing in the Soviet Union, covering the practice of geriatrics, the science of gerontology, and the experience of growing old. Chapters in the book focus on concepts and themes that analyse Soviet ageing…

This project investigates the effects of the Asia-Pacific War (1931-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953) on the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food in transwar Japan and Korea.

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

This project explored the role of material culture, in casu painted plaster and its technologies, in expressing dynamic social identities and in forging complex interwoven human relationships in the context of the Middle to Late Bronze Age of the Aegean and East Mediterranean.

The linguistic project constitutes the connection between the two other subprojects. It consists of two parts.

The Master's programme in Russian and Eurasian Studies offers you the opportunity to develop specialised knowledge of this region. The programme provides you with a qualification which is recognised by organisations around the world, and offers excellent preparation for a diverse range of careers.

To argue that people can control the relative contributions of goal-driven and stimulus-driven processes to decision-making and action selection.

Covering all seven countries on the isthmus, this volume presents the first collection of original linguistic studies on Central American Spanish varieties, which have long been neglected in Hispanic Linguistics.

This project explores the decline of shifting cultivation in Northeast India. What is the impact on society of people’s deepening engagement with markets and the state?

Linguistic Choices in the Contemporary City focuses on how individuals navigate conversation in highly diversified contexts and provides a broad overview of state of the art research in urban sociolinguistics across the globe.

The Latin language is a descendant of the widespread Indo-European family of languages. Recent ancient genetic studies have helped shed light on the likelihood that the Indo-European languages spread into a Europe that had already been populated by farmers for thousands of years.

So far it has been impossible to compare large sets of syntactic constructions in large sets of languages systematically and automatically. The online availability of parallel text corpora and software tools to align, enrich, search and analyse them has the potential to make automatic massive systematic…

This research project is funded by a subsidy from Instituut Gak.

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.

How do processes of coalition-formation influence patterns of decision-making in the European Union?

Conference