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…

This thesis investigates the historical development of Japanese pitch accent.

The current study focuses on Walpole’s social network and the language as contained in the letters of the network members.

Linguistic research on a unique collection of Dutch letters allowed us to gain access to the every-day language of people from various walks of life. Private letters by men, women and even children have been elaborately explored in the Letters as Loot researchprogramme, initiated and directed by prof.…

The project aims at highlighting and strengthening Dutch research into the diversity of the world’s languages from a historic and a cognitive perspective.

Fokelien Kootstra defended her thesis on 23 April 2019

The Dutch prefix ge- in historical perspective gives first of all a general account of the development of the word formation processes involving ge- in which special attention is paid to the participial ge-.

The project Going Dutch investigates why the link between being or becoming Dutch, and knowledge of Standard Dutch is so often taken for granted in public discourse, by diving into its historical roots.

This dissertation assesses the influence of British Celtic on the phonological development of English during and shortly after the Anglo-Saxon settlement period, ca. AD 450-700.

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…

The Disticha Catonis by Catenaccio of Anagni. A text in vernacular from Latium (late 13th - early 14th century)

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

The main goal of this project is to answer the question: how did Dutch acquire its own, distinctive linguistic characteristics?

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

In this study, the formation of the Tocharian subjunctive is described, its use and meaning are analysed and its origins are investigated.

This thesis discusses the development in Proto–Indo–European, Latin and Romance of a word–formation pattern which the most adequate terminology in use dubs ‘verbal government compounds with a governing first member’; I use the shorthand ‘pickpocket compounds’.

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.

This dissertation attempts to describe the linguistic history of Hittite on the basis of a systematic etymological treatment of its entire inherited lexicon, precisely analyzing the phonological and morphological developments.

In this dissertation, a corpus of 595 seventeenth-century letters (mainly private ones) written between 1664 and 1672 is examined from a sociolinguistic perspective.

More than a thousand 17th- and 18th-century Dutch letters from seized ships are now available online. The letters are a gold mine for researchers wanting to study the everyday language used by men and women during this period.

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.

This grammar describes Sumerian, an ancient Near Eastern language which was spoken in what is now southern Iraq, on the basis of written sources dating from about 2500 to 2000 BC.

Conference, 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.

Alwin Kloekhorst, working at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, has received a Vidi grant for his research on the break-up of the Indo-European language.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research has awarded dr. Lucien van Beek a Veni grant. This grant offers young researchers the possibility to develop their innovative ideas for a period of three or four years. The awarded research proposal focuses on the Ancient Greek dialects' contribution…

Japanologist and linguist Martine Robbeets is going to use her newly acquired ERC Consolidator Grant to study the origins and spread of Trans-Eurasian languages, which include Japanese and Turkish. With it, she’s tackling one of the most controversial subjects in language history.

Studying Sumerian grammar in your free time: Bram Jagersma did it. He described centuries-old Sumerian using a modern method he devised himself. For this PhD research he was awarded the De La Court Award for Independent Research by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science (KNAW).

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…

From the effects of hormone fluctuations in women via the interior structure of giant planets to the prehistory of the languages: six Leiden researchers have been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council.

LUCL is glad to announce that two of its members have been awarded an NWO Vrije Competitie Grant.

Just as some people today dislike English influences on the Dutch language, in early modern times people also criticised the Frenchification of Dutch. But to what extent did French actually leave its mark in our language? PhD student Brenda Assendelft made a surprising discovery. PhD defence 24 May.