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…

The two-year MA in Chinese Studies, a specialisation of Leiden University’s master's in Asian Studies, combines content courses with intensive and advanced language training, outstanding teaching, and world-class resources to bring you the only qualification of its calibre offered in the Netherlands…

‘We hope our paper highlights the possibilities and benefits of including artificial intelligence in quantum physics to do new discoveries.’ Vedran Dunjko of the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science contributed to a paper that was published in PNAS last year and now received a Cozzarelli Prize…

How would you convert Egyptian hieroglyphs into Latin script? And what is actually the correct translation of dishes on a Vietnamese menu? On Saturday 28 January, high school students from all over the Netherlands will come to Leiden to ponder a series of language-related puzzles. Their goal? To win…

Now available on YouTube!

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

During his two-day visit to the Netherlands, the Chinese Prime Minister paid an unexpected visit to Leiden on 16 October. Li Keqiang spoke with Rector Carel Stolker, Chinese PhD candidates and students of China Studies.

For decades, scholars have wondered about the development and dissemination of languages around the world. What are the odds that peoples living thousands of miles apart speak varieties of Indo-European languages that are closely related? This riddle has now partly been solved thanks to an international…

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

This study describes religion in Java.

Cette étude montre que le développement phonético-phonologique en fulfulde et bambara est à la foiscomparable au développement langagier dans d’autres langues du monde et influencé par les caractéristiques phonétiques et phonologiques de ces deux langues notamment au niveau de la phonotaxe.

In the new video series 'The World of Linguistics', alumni and researchers talk about their passion for their field. Professor of African Linguistics Maarten Mous explains the importance of hearing your language at school.

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.

Linguist Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade retired in July, but is pressing on regardless with her languages in The Hague project. An online tour of her Hague Proverbs launched recently and Tieken also has academic publications in the pipeline.

From games to scavenger hunts: museums already do all sorts of things for children. But how do children really look at art? Do paintings affect them more if they receive information that is specially tailored to young visitors? Join psychologist Francesco Walker at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and see…

This volume offers a multidisciplinary view of cutting-edge research on bilingualism in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking regions, with the aim of building a bridge between sub-fields and approaches that often find themselves isolated from one another.

The present study comprises a classification and analysis of the syntax of the non-verbal clause in Qumran Hebrew, i.e. the linguistic variety (or varieties) found in the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls. The corpus consists of the non-biblical texts written in Hebrew; biblical texts and texts written in…

On 7 October, a court in Athens, Greece, convicted leaders of the far-right Golden Dawn party as directing a criminal organization. Marina Terkourafi, professor of Sociolinguistics, discusses the landmark ruling for the Leiden International Studies Blog.

According to Russian propaganda Ukrainians are Nazis and people from the West are Satanists. Egbert Fortuin thinks we should take this propaganda seriously.

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.

Chinese organisations increasingly operate across the borders of China, and growing numbers of people from outside China are coming to live there. Professor Frank Pieke believes these movements have a significant effect on central and local government policy in China.

The prehistory of communication metaphors

PhD defence

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

Morality, mathematics, geometry, geography, music, navigation, and language are traditionally viewed as uniquely human cultural achievements and abilities. The study of their development and variation is classified as part of the humanities and social sciences. These fields have been mainly studied…

Erik-Jan Zürcher, professor of Turkish languages and cultures, returns his Turkish medal to protest against the repressive regime of Erdogan's government.

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 presents thesis investigates the extent to which Chinese, Dutch and American speakers of English are mutually intelligible. Intelligibility of vowels, simplex consonants and consonant clusters was tested in meaningless sound sequences, as well as in words in meaningless and meaningful short sent…

Brandon Valeriano (Cato Institute) and Aleydis Nissen (Leiden University) publish an article on the soft power of K-pop in The Diplomat.

If you really want to understand East Asia, you can't overlook Korea. At the Bachelor's programme Korean Studies at Leiden University you will discover a fascinating mix of age-old traditions and modern customs through intensively studying culture, history and language.

Corona travel restrictions and increased political pressure: research into China has become considerably more difficult in recent years. University lecturer and China researcher Rogier Creemers does not let this put him off. He receives an NWO grant to screen policy documents using digital technique…

How do common marmosets combine their calls into sequences and how are their vocalisations influenced by reproductive state?

Browse the latest articles and issues of Inter-Section.

Cooperation on education with China stimulates innovation and brings a different perspective and new content to classrooms.

The one-year master's in East Asian Studies, a specialisation of Leiden University’s master's in Asian Studies, offers focused study of either China, Japan or Korea.

Exploring the language of the lower classes in the nineteenth century

LIAS aims to advance the globally conscious vision of area studies, both within and outside the academic community. Focusing on Asia and the Middle East, the institute is a meeting place of multiple fields of inquiry, theories and methods, historical periods, and areas.

On 13 February 2018, the European Law Expertise Centre (ECER) and the newly established Centre for International Law (CIR) jointly organised a Brexit conference on the practical implications of international and European law of the Brexit for the interpretation and application of the law in practice…

This dissertation set out to provide both an integrated framework for the practices of teacher peer feedback and an in-depth understanding of teacher peer feedback in the Chinese vocational education context.

Students are educated to become academic professionals and responsible and engaged citizens who are internationally and interculturally competent

The Cide Archaeological Project: Surveying the Turkish Western Black Sea Region

From the formative period of Islam to the contemporary world, Muslims have negotiated changing modalities of being Muslim.

Context and contents of the Izcatqui manuscript in the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam

Principles of Environmental Sciences provides a comprehensive picture of the principles, concepts and methods that are applicable to problems originating from the interaction between the living and non-living environment and mankind. Both the analysis of such problems and the way solutions to environmental…

It is with great pleasure that we present to you the second volume of Inter-Section, published in 2017.