Knowledge and culture subproject 1:

In the Netherlands approximately 130 out of 700 secondary schools offer a bilingual stream. However, research about CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is limited. With her dissertation Evelyn van Kampen (PhD student at ICLON) wants to contribute to the understanding of the nature and range…

Beauty is a central concept in the Italian cultural imagination throughout its history and in virtually all its manifestations. It particularly permeates the domains that have governed the construction of Italian identity: literature and language.

Lecture, LUCL Colloquium - Series '24/'25

A project on phonology, phonetics, and the space between them.

What is the effect of a dynamic training in children’s inductive reasoning skills and how is it related to children’s school performances and language development.

The research focuses on the understanding of symbolic stratigraphy of the land (through time) from the worldview of the People of the Rain (one of the Indigenous Peoples of southern Mexico), by studying contemporary cultural heritage in communities of the Mixtec Highlands.

Languages of The Hague is a collection of columns on languages and language which were published between 2016 and 2018 in the weekly newspaper Den Haag Centraal.

Dr Jenny Doetjes was appointed Professor of Semantics and Language Variation in February. During her professorship Dr. Doetjes wishes to focus on charting linguistic patterns between languages that, at first glance, seem to have little to do with each other.

From the smallest level of interaction among families and close friends, over the meso-level of schools, shops, churches, religious communities and companies, to the highest level of nation-states and international organisations: Language Policy and Planning (LPP) is everywhere!

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.

On December 18th, Viktorija Kostadinova succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Viktorija on this great result.

The present investigation aims at exploring whether the instruction provided at secondary schools in the capital meets the requirements of Communicative Language Teaching and whether the aims of improving learners’ communicative proficiency are met.

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

In this article Fisher, Klein & Codjo introduce the FOCUSdate Project and they show how the sentiment data provide unique abilities to analyze Russia's and Iran's reactions to US policies and events and NGO human rights campaigns.

The ultimate aim of the project is to find out whether there are such things as

This project looks at how the native language influences processing mechanisms of non-native language(s) as well has how it influences brain structure and functional connectivity.

Like any language, the natural sign languages (henceforth: SLs) of deaf communities differ from each other in their grammars and lexicons. A growing number of studies indicates that SLs make use of the gestures of hearing speakers to build linguistic structure. This implies that variation and similarities…

How do speakers adapt to multilingual contexts?

This collaborative research group (CRG) facilitates the synergies of researchers engaged with African languages and documentation of texts conducted in East Africa, paying particular attention to ‘endangered archives’ and ‘endangered languages’.

This project explores how Muslim authorities and writers use Russian to transmit Islamic contents, and whether this leads to a specific

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.

Comparison between babies and song-birds when they are learning a non-existent language—a study of this kind has never been tried before. But this is what Claartje Levelt, Carel ten Cate (Leiden University) and Jelle Zuidema (University of Amsterdam) are attempting.

Knowledge and culture subproject 2:

From ca. 1540 to 1600, thousands fled the war-stricken Southern Low Countries to the British Isles, Germany, and the Northern Low Countries. Research on this displacement crisis, central to the formation of the Netherlands and Belgium, reflects 21st-century debates on migration and language: language…

A linguistic prehistory of the Tarim Basin in Northwest China

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

Across cultures, parents help their children master the social and linguistic codes needed in adult life. Recent research on language socialization found important cross-cultural differences, pointing out the need for more diversity for a full understanding of this process. Deaf communities form…

The Academic Language Centre organises language courses for companies, government agencies, private clients, and students and staff members of Leiden University.

How do teachers conceptualise, develop and implement an effective CLIL practice?

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…

The research programme Language Use in Past and Present brings together linguists within LUCL whose central focus is both on actual language data, including language use in earlier stages of the language, and, taking a variationist perspective, on language change in various aspects.

This research project focuses on the extended documentation and investigation of these non-Austronesian (‘Papuan’) languages.

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.

Language connects us! We are here to help you! The Academic Language Centre (ATC) is the language centre of Leiden University. As the oldest university language centre in the Netherlands, we offer language courses in a wide range of languages, both for beginners and advanced students. All courses are…

On the 17th of January, Sarah Von Grebmer Zu Wolfsthurn successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Sarah on this achievement!

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

I am Nargess Asghari. I came to the Netherlands in 2017 to study Linguistics at Leiden University. I wrote my pre-master’s and master’s theses on Iranian Sign Language and Berbey Sign Language (an emerging family sign language in the village of Berbey, Mali), respectively, under the supervision of Dr.…

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.

Like any language, the natural sign languages of deaf communities differ from each other in their grammars and lexicons. A growing number of studies indicates that sign languages make use of the gestures of hearing speakers to build linguistic structure. This implies that variation and similarities…

Chinese Linguistics at Leiden University offers you an excellent opportunity to benefit from our long-standing expertise in Chinese linguistics

Carlotta Rigotti, Postdoc researcher at eLaw, and Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Associate Professor at eLaw, delivered a lecture on AI and non-discrimination, engaging students with the Debiaser demo.

The Academic Language Centre Leiden offers French language courses at eight different levels, an intensive summer course and customised French language training. The courses are practical in nature: focusing on the use of the language. More information can be found here >

The Academic Language Centre Leiden offers Arabic language courses at many different levels, an intensive summer course and customised Arabic language training. The courses are practical in nature: focusing on the use of the language. More information can be found here >

The Academic Language Centre Leiden offers Italian language courses at many different levels and tailor-made Italian language courses. The courses are practical in nature: focusing on the use of the language. More information can be found here >

The Academic Language Centre Leiden offers Arabic language courses at various levels, an intensive summer course and tailor-made Japanese language training. The courses are practical in nature: focusing on the use of the language. More information can be found here >

The Academic Language Centre Leiden offers Russian language courses at various levels and tailor-made Russian language courses. The courses are practical in nature: focusing on the use of the language. More information can be found here >

The Academic Language Centre Leiden offers Chinese language courses at three different levels and tailor-made Chinese language courses. The courses are practical in nature: focusing on the use of the language. More information can be found here >

The Academic Language Center Leiden offers Korean language courses at various levels and customized Korean language training. The courses are practical in nature: focused on the use of the language. More information can be found here >