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…

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

At LUCL, researchers have established the Leiden Hands!Lab for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies.

Une étude archéo-anthropologique de la céramique des sociétés caribéennes multiculturelles de la période précoloniale à nos jours

The Leiden Summer School in Languages and Linguistics offers a varied program of specialised courses in Descriptive linguistics, in Chinese, Germanic, Indo-European, Indian, Iranian, Semitic languages and linguistics, as well as a number of introductory linguistic courses.

The Leiden HANDS!Lab for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies hosts research activities in the area of sign language linguistics and Deaf studies, with a focus on Africa. In addition to various research projects, we have our Deaf studies lecture Series in International Sign and offer various regular and…

Taal als sleutel tot het begrijpen van de mens.

Open access, online talks on African Sign Language Studies, in International sign and English

PhD defence

This book celebrates Maarten Mous, professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University.

How do speakers adapt to multilingual contexts?

A linguistic prehistory of the Tarim Basin in Northwest China

The languages of the Mbam-et-Inoubou District of the Centre Region of Cameroon have a unique position in Bantu linguistics. Being in between

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

This project investigates properties of quantity expressions across languages from the perspective of how quantity is represented in the human brain.

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.

What is the relationship between America and North Korea? How big are the chances that a war will break out? How important are the personalities of Trump and Kim Jong-un? These and other questions about North Korea were treated in the BNR-De Wereld programme that was broadcasted live from Campus The…

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 edited book presents case-studies and reflections on the role of languages and their analytic study in development practices across four regions: Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific.

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 thorough description of the relationships among languages and their social environment in a given context, reflecting an ecological perspective, involves attention to the agency of local actors, and the policies, discourse, and ideologies that surround them.

On the 13th of November, Hanna Fricke successfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Hanna on this achievement.

By documenting lexical and morpho-syntactic patterns among P’urhepecha speakers in Mexico and the US diaspora, this project will investigate the sources of language variation. The ensuing online dialect atlas will serve as an online resource for speakers, learners and researchers of the language.

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.

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…

It is our goal to deliver a convenient, enjoyable, learning experience that goes beyond the basics. All of the apps are an initiative of the HANDS! Lab for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies at Leiden University, as part of the Language Socialization in Deaf Families project funded by the Leiden University…

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 goal is to develop educational materials for Dâw, Hupd’äh, and Nadëb Indigenous peoples (Naduhup family; Middle and Upper Rio Negro; Brazilian Amazon). In order to achieve this, first of all, the fieldwork data collected during a collaborative project among anthropologists and linguists (2017-2020)…

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

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.

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…

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

Now available on YouTube!

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

In the tv show 'De wereld draait door' of Tuesday 4 February, Prof. Hendrik Lenstra, together with Prof. Barry Koren, gave an explaination of the so-called 'Millenium Problems'.

In the BNR Newsradioprogram De Nieuwe Wereld, professors Aske Plaat (Data Science) and Catholijn Jonker (Explainable AI) of the computer science institute of Leiden University discuss about decisions made by computers. From self-driving cars to intelligent soap pumps: should we be able to follow the…

Bert Koenders, Professor Peace, Justice and Security at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) appeared live on the ‘BNR de Wereld’ special broadcast ‘De Grote Vredesshow’ (The Great Peace Show). The radio show was hosted live from Wijnhaven in collaboration with the Faculty Governance…

The prehistory of communication metaphors