The Old Observatory houses four historical telescopes. On this page you can learn more about them.

To be eligible for Middle Eastern Studies at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Lecture, Descriptive Linguistics Seminars

Psycholinguistic research

The Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) offers bachelor and master level education in computer science at Leiden University. We are known for our scientifically based education and for our open atmosphere.

This collection considers such issues as the cognitive, linguistic and emotional benefits of speaking two languages, the perceptions, attitudes and issues relating to identity in minority language areas, and the number of grammatical aspects amongst those who speak these minority languages.

This volume investigates how loanwords can prove past contact events, taking into consideration ten different regions located in the Philippines, Eastern Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and New Guinea.

On the 4th of June, Saskia Lensink successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Saskia Lensink on this achievement!

Reconstructing language history and prehistory in the context of the Indo-European language family.

On the 12th of November, Xander Vertegaal successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Xander on this achievement!

On the 16th of February 2022 Mr. Yunus Sulistyono successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This dissertation presents a description of Sandawe, a Khoisan language spoken by approximately 60 000 speakers in Dodoma Region, Tanzania.

On the 16th of February, Yunus Sulistyono successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Yunus on this achievement!

Lecture, Friends of the Kern Institute

This dissertation provides a description of Makonde, a Bantu language spoken in Tanzania.

A living language?

This dissertation for the first time provides a detailed description of Benchnon, a language spoken by approximately 200.000 people in Southwest Ethiopia.

In this thesis chemical and physical processes in the ice mantles on interstellar dust grains are studied.

This book is the first grammar on Ternate Malay, a local variety of Malay spoken on the island of Ternate, North-Moluccas, Indonesia.

On the 23rd of September, George Saad successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates George on this achievement!

Which features characterize speakers’ voices, and how are these features determined by what a speaker is saying?

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

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 dissertation provides a description of Konso, a Cushitic language spoken by about 250,000 speakers in the South-West Ethiopia.

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.

This dissertation provides a description of the phonology and morphology of Mambay, an Adamawa (Niger-Congo) language spoken by 15,000 people in Chad and Cameroon.

Interested in the BSc Science for Sustainable Societies at Leiden University? Please check our admission requirements.

The Master’s programme Health, Ageing and Society trains its students to become academic Health, Ageing and Society professionals and engaged citizens who are competent and trained internationally and interdisciplinary. They are able to contribute to solutions for the challenges facing our ageing so…

The aim of this project is the linguistic documentation of Bakola, a Narrow Bantu language.

NASA’s telescope SOFIA has provided a new glimpse of the chemistry in the inner region surrounding massive young stars where future planets could begin to form. Leiden PhD candidate Andrew Barr writes about it in the Astrophysical Journal. The scientists found massive quantities of water and organic…

The project “Localizing the Women Peace & Security Agenda Across Multiple Governance Challenges” funded by the Global Transformations and Governance Challenges Seed Grant Program, is seeking a student assistant to assist the project leaders on a variety of administrative tasks from April 2022-January…

A synchronic description of the endangered Slovene dialect spoken in the Gailtal valley in Carinthia, Austria.

A linguistic test of hypotheses rooted in genetics and archaeology.

The Historical Acting Summer Academy, taught by historical actor Jed Wentz, gives students the chance to focus on the basic techniques of acting 1750-1850.

On the 20th of April, Chams Benoît Bernard successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Chams on this achievement!

Over a billion people live in China, it has the most spoken language in the world and is a major player on the world stage. Do you want to broaden your knowledge about this fascinating and powerful country? Study the language, culture, economy and politics on a high academic level with China Studies…

A European team of astronomers has discovered the largest stellar black hole in the Milky Way. It is more than thirty times as massive as our sun and is located in the constellation of Aquila, about two thousand light-years from Earth. The astronomers stumbled upon the black hole by chance while preparing…

Astronomers led by Leiden astronomer Sebastiaan Haffert have directly imaged two planets that are gravitationally carving out a wide gap within a planet-forming disk surrounding a young star. While over a dozen exoplanets have been directly imaged, this is only the second multi-planet system to be p…

Leiden PhD student Xuequan Zhou has designed a new promising molecule that efficiently kills cancer cells, but does not harm healthy tissue. The trick: the drug is only active when irradiated with light. Zhou’s new compound does this extra efficiently by cleverly self-organising into nanoparticles.…

Planet formation is a surprisingly homogeneous process that does not take place gradually from inside out, but that occurs everywhere at the same time in a proto-planetary disc, as Dave Lommen has discovered. He will obtain his doctorate this week based on his research into the dust around young stars…

The European Research Council has awarded an Advanced Grant to Prof. dr. Maarten E.R.G.N. Jansen for the research project

Every year The Young Academy (a sub-group of KNAW) nominates ten talented researchers to join their ranks. This year two of the nominees are from Leiden University: Quentin Bourgeois and Frans Snik.

The ALMA Local Expertise Group (Allegro) is located in the Leiden Observatory (Sterrewacht). Professor Ewine van Dishoeck: ‘The Netherlands has played an important role in establishing ALMA. Thanks to this subsidy, we can now reap the scientific benefits.'

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Is there extra-terrestrial life out there? It now looks as though we can sketch out an answer to this enduring question. Leiden Observatory is helping to build new instruments to find the most promising exoplanets.

This dissertation provides a grammatical description of the Awjila language, a small Berber language spoken in the Libyan oasis of Awjila.

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.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Promotor: Jan van der Greef; Co-promotors: Mei Wang; Eduard van Wijk

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