This thesis presents a thorough survey of the central aspects of the phonology of Shaoxing Chinese from a synchronic perspective and on the basis of recent theoretical phonological developments, with the secondary goal of casting some light on current issues in Modern Chinese (Mandarin).

In the specialisation in Modern Languages you will explore the structure, acquisition, history and use of one or more of these five languages in depth: Chinese, English, French, German and/or Italian.

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

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.

On 1 August, Egbert Fortuin has been appointed Professor of Russian Language and Linguistics. After a five-year term as vice-dean of the Faculty Board, he is eager to fully devote himself to the study programme. His appointment can therefore be summarised in three words: 'I am back'.

On the 12th of October, Fatemeh Tabassi Mofrad successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Fatemeh on this achievement!

This project aims to revisit the ways in which religious minorities in the Middle East participated in, contributed to, and opposed the Arab nationalism of the post-war years, when the British and French ruled the region via the Mandates. Research question: How did religious minorities in the Middle…

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

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…

This grammar presents an in-depth linguistic description of one Papuan Malay variety, based on fifteen hours of recordings of spontaneous narratives and conversations between Papuan Malay speakers.

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.

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.

The English language and culture study programme also exists in the form of a part-time programme.

How is social cognition shaped by our knowledge of language and stories?

Literature, Language, and Multiculturalism in Scandinavia and the Low Countries presents a ground-breaking comparative approach to the study of multicultural literature.

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 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.

The history of sign languages of deaf people is severely understudied. The historical linguistics of sign languages offers a fundamentally new perspective on the history of human languages. This project addresses the dearth of knowledge about historical sign language linguistics through a large-scale…

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

This dissertation provides a systematic description of English and Afrikaans verbal pseudo-coordination and a formal analysis couched in the Minimalist program.

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 proposal aims at the construction of a comprehensive and authoritative scientific grammar for Dutch and Frisian in the form of a virtual language institute: het Taalportaal/the Language Portal.

How do sign languages change and spread over time, and how is this influenced by their transmission history?

There is no human society that does not employ a rich and diverse language. This course introduces you to linguistics, featuring interviews with well-known linguists and with speakers of many different languages. Join us to explore the miracles of human language!

On the 27th of June, Timothy Mac Hadjah successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Timothy on this achievement!

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.

Knowledge and culture subproject 1:

After having been cancelled in 2020, this year the Summer School in Languages and Linguistics is going online. From 12 – 23 July, language and linguistics enthusiasts from all over the world can once again learn about a variety of rare languages and linguistics topics. Director Sasha Lubotsky tells…

From 2 to 5 September 2015, Leiden served as the stage for one of the world’s largest linguistics conferences: the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE) 2015 Annual Meeting. Marianne Mithun, a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara and outgoing president of the SLE, is not surprised that…

When it comes to languages and cultures, Leiden University is the university. The global expertise present places our university at the top. In Leiden and The Hague, we study languages and cultures from all regions of the world and from prehistory to the present day. In this way we create a broad view…

Maarten Mous, Professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University, looks back on the 50th edition of the Colloquium of African Languages and Linguistics (CALL) and explains why this birthday was a celebration like no other.

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.…

Maarten Mous, Professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University, looks back on the 50th edition of the Colloquium of African Languages and Linguistics (CALL) and explains why this birthday was a celebration like no other.

How do we process language and speech? How do we integrate information at different levels – intonation, sentence structure, meaning, tone, words, sounds - and how does information at one level interact with information at another level?

The Leiden Summerschool in Languages and Linguistics, including courses in Papyrology, is now open. BA/MA/PhD students are welcome to attend.

The study of language in change.

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

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.

This thesis investigates the connection between tonal realization and tone change (tone sandhi) in Wenzhou Chinese, and whether and how such a connection is conditioned by prosodic structure and focus marking.

The research programme Descriptive and Comparative Linguistics brings together LUCL researchers who focus mainly on descriptive and comparative linguistics.

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…

Collaborative linguistic research on indigenous languages of Ecuador: description, documentation & materials