Prof. dr. Roberta D'Alessandro has written an article on the increasing difficulties that researchers encounter when they apply for a research grant in the Netherlands.

A large interdisciplinary NWO research project attempted to discover the cognitive origin of the human ability to learn linguistic rules. This is not so simple, according to linguist Andreea Geambaşu and her colleagues. PhD defence on 11 December.

This thesis investigates durational aspects of the Italian mobile diphthongs with respect to other rising diphthongs and monophthongs and it shows to what extent the monophthong/diphthong alternation still occurs in contemporary Italian.

While Old Germanic studies might seem dated and, regrettably, occupies a less than secure position in various academic institutions, exciting new research presented by young researchers shows that the field is still vibrant and may have a bright future. On Thursday, the 7th of April, the ‘Junius Symposium…

How do you make niche subjects interesting and accessible? Benjamin Suchard, historical linguist and researcher, seems to have created the perfect recipe, which consists of his various projects alongside his regular research, including a Twitter account and a major international film.

On Friday, the 24th of April 2015, the Junius Symposium voor Jonge Oudgermanisten, a symposium for junior researchers in the field of language, culture and history of the (early) medieval Germanic tribes, was organized by Peter Alexander Kerkhof (LUCL) and Thijs Porck (LUCAS).

That's just learning parrot-fashion. This was the argument with which the proposal to establish a language lab at Leiden University was rejected in 1962. But six years later, the language lab was launched. And now the Academic Language Lab is celebrating its 50-year anniversary.

Information provided by the Tax and Customs Administration is something that concerns every citizen. So it is not surprising that the Tax hotline receives around 10 million calls each year. The Benefits Affair emphasised the citizen’s perspective in communications with the Tax and Customs Administration.…

Discover history and present. With it's eventful history and politics, Russia is a country with a large influence on Europe and the world. In the Dutch-taught Bachelor's programme Russian Studies you will learn everything about the culture, language and politics of the largest country in the world and…

Until recently the Congo’s isolated Boa community had never read a single letter in their own language: quite simply, there was no alphabet to describe the language. A crowdfunding campaign by guest staff member Gerrit de Wit has changed that. He plans to use the rest of the money to work with a Congolese…

This study investigates the syntax and distribution of the two elliptical phenomena Gapping and Fragments, as well as the movements involved in ellipsis contexts in general.

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.

For many deaf Ghanaians, Ghanaian Sign Language is their first language. But for more deaf signers to be able to fully participate in society, more sign language interpreters, deaf school teachers and family members need to be trained. What better way to facilitate this by means of a Ghanaian Sign Language…

Our language is adapted to the context in which we humans communicate. But computers ‘think’ differently. What is the optimal form of a language for human-machine communication? Tessa Verhoef is trying to find the answer.

Our language is adapted to the context in which we humans communicate. But computers ‘think’ differently. What would a language be like whose structure was optimally adjusted for use by humans and machines? Tessa Verhoef is trying to find the answer.

‘If it rains later, then I’ll take the car.’ In order to reason, we use sentences containing ‘if’ every single day. But how does that work exactly in the Dutch language? Alex Reuneker wrote his 628 page dissertation on the subject. Ceremony on 26 January.

This study relates the vicissitudes of the Amerindian peoples who lived or still inhabit the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, from the earliest occupants, ca. 8000 BC, until at present.

What made the early Islamic empire so successful and have we missed the story by neglecting crucial evidence? The 7th-century Arab conquests changed the socio-political configurations in the Mediterranean and Eurasia forever. Yet we do not really know how the Arabs managed to gain dominance of this…

The Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC) is concentrating increasingly on research into the role of the brain in language development. The institute has now set up the LIBC Language website that brings together all the information on this research.

The University Executive Board has appointed Maarten Kossmann as professor for Berber Studies as of April 1, 2017. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics management team would like to congratulate Maarten with this appointment, which will strengthen LUCL’s descriptive linguistic research in general…

This dissertation presents an in-depth study of the clause-typing system in Ecuadorian Siona.

Ingrid Tieken, Professor at the English Department of Leiden University, has been awarded a Vrije Competite grant by NWO.

Linguist Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade retired in July, but is pressing on regardless with her languages in The Hague project. An online tour of her Hague Proverbs launched recently and Tieken also has academic publications in the pipeline.

'Psychologists think I’m a linguist but linguists think I’m a psychologist,' says cognitive neuroscientist Xiaochen Zheng. With the Veni grant she will be able to bring these two fields of research closer together. Read her answers to five questions.

Professor Claartje Levelt, together with Paula Fikkert (Radboud University), has received an NWO Open Competition grant for research into the development of word production in toddlers.

A century ago, the French linguist Ferdinand de Saussure proposed that the relationship between the sound of a word and its meaning is fundamentally arbitrary. In a new study, a team of researchers from European and American research institutions, including Søren Wichmann from Leiden University Centre…

PhD defence

How does the human mind work when it comes to language? Why are some speeches totally persuasive, and others less so? How do children acquire language so effortlessly? How do languages develop over the course of time? How many different speech sounds can humans make? During your BA in Linguistics you…

Leiden University researchers have discovered by chance a note from 1783 in Papiamento. They are working on a linguistic study on confiscated Dutch letters. The ‘Letters as loot’ project is headed by Professor Marijke van der Wal.

During the past year online meetings and lectures have become a firm feature of university life. One of the highlights of the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics’ online activities has been the online seminar series ‘Language policy and practices in the Global North and South’ organised by guest…

On the 29th of June, Martin Kohlberger successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Martin on this achievement!

How might viola and string quartet playing in the performer-centered, moment-to-moment and communicative style heard on early recordings be brought about today?

A linguistics journal based at Leiden University has risen to the ranks of the top-10 journals in the Humanities.

The article investigates the origins of Indo-European languages in Asia by 65 coupling ancient genomics to archaeology and linguistics.

On 21 September 2022 H. Hu successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This project launches a research program into the theoretical status and the terminological basis of evidentiality systems.

The Leiden University Center for Linguistics (LUCL) will organise Going Romance 2019 on November 28-29, 2019.

Study information

Study information

Researcher Max van Duijn and PhD student Bram van Dijk apply language models to stories told by children to investigate empathy. For this research, they received the Best Paper Award at the Computational Natural Language Learning Conference in Singapore.

A new challenge for Felix Ameka. The senior lecturer at the Centre for Linguistics has been appointed professor by special appointment of Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Diversity in the World. ‘I am looking forward to promoting ethnolinguistic diversity and vitality.’

Speech Prosody 2024 includes seven special sessions. When making a submission, authors are asked to indicate whether they want their paper to be considered for a special session. You can find descriptions of each below.

Professor Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade has been awarded a fellowship at Clare College at the University of Cambridge from February to August 2011. She will use the opportunity to pursue her research on the relationship between the history of grammar writing and actual usage.

From 17 to 19 September, the University of Granada organized the 27th International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (SELIM).

The aim of this research was to establish if Ebeling's semiotactic theory and method of semiotactic analysis, as described in his works Syntax and Semantics (1978), Een Inleiding tot de Syntaxis (1994) and Semiotaxis, over Theoretische en Nederlandse Syntaxis (2006), could be applied to Modern Japanese…

Lecture, Interactionality seminars