Self-directed learning is more suitable for intermediate and advanced language learners than for beginners.

International scholarly publisher Brill has released the most complete and up-to-date reference work on the Chinese language available today. Prof.dr. Rint Sybesma oversaw the project as Editor-in-Chief.

Professor Johan Rooryck will be examining cognition and core knowledge systems and how possession is expressed in different languages. Rooryck and fellow researchers have been awarded two NWO grants totalling 2.75 million euro to carry out two research programmes: 'Knowledge and Culture' and 'Lend me…

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 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.

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.

When is (or becomes) an out-of-body experience a R/S experience? (How) do people make sense of their experiences and is this related to mental health? Which motives do people have to (not) communicate their out-of-body experiences with regular and/or alternative caregivers? And what does it tell us…

Below you will find an overview of the publications of The Leiden Advocacy Project on Plastic.

Now available on YouTube!

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

A large interdisciplinary NWO research project attempted to discover the cognitive origin of the human ability to learn linguistic rules. This is not so simple, according to linguist Andreea Geambaşu and her colleagues. PhD defence on 11 December.

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

Exploring the language of the lower classes in the nineteenth century

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

This project seeks to close the gap between the three main players in the field of prescriptivism: the linguists themselves, the prescriptivists (as writers of usage guides) and those who depend upon such manuals.

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

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…

What is lobbying? How does it work? Starting February 2 Leiden University professors, Jaap de Jong and Arco Timmermans will introduce high school students to the language of lobbying. Digital classes together with a teacher's kit will be available in Dutch from February.

The main topic of this PhD thesis is the Arakelov ray class group of a number field, an algebraic object that contains both the ideal class group structure and the unit group structure.

Marietje Beemsterboer defended her thesis on 12 June 2018 (in Dutch)

Lexicographical description of Greek; production of Greek-Dutch dictionary

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

Important note: upon careful consideration, we have decided to resume our Dutch language courses.

Man is nature's mind-reading champion: we are better able than any other living beings to empathise with others. This comes in part from our story-telling culture, according to Max van Duijn. PhD defence 20 April.

The Feature Co-occurrence Constraint theory proposed in this dissertation provides a means to capture the development of the language learning child's segment inventory.

Tonal bilinguals of two closely related Chinese dialects are amazing people. They handle two tonal systems in their mind; their two vocabularies are from closely related dialects, and they write translation equivalents with common Chinese characters. Their unique language situation makes their mind…

Our courses September courses start soon, be sure to apply in time

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

This project examines the intriguing relationship between Greek literary criticism and Latin literature in Rome (first centuries BC and AD).

Students with learning problems experience difficulties in reading, writing, and content-area learning into and throughout their secondary-school years

In this research, for the first time a detailed description as well as systematic and comparative analysis of the final particle system in Chinese are provided.

The book on Turkey. A Modern History written by Professor Erik-Jan Zürcher, Professor of Turkish Studies, is now available in nine different languages. Arabic and Polish versions have now been published.

This study looks at the diverse phonological systems found within Central Chadic, and reconstructs the phonological system of their ancestor language.

A European project should help reinvigorate Latin teaching in secondary schools. 'By focusing on citizenship, we want to show that Latin is relevant to discussions about citizenship and migration.'

Investigating specific language and speech behaviour of people.

In close collaboration with the Center for Medieval Studies (Fordham), Centre for Medieval literature (Odense and York) and Centre for Medieval Studies (York), the University of Ghent organizes an Autumn School for PhD- and MA-students in Medieval Studies (18-22 October 2021). It will be organized in…

This study proposes a theory for the encoding of specificity and definiteness in the Chinese nominal based on Cantonese, Mandarin and Wenzhou data.

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

This study investigates the perception and production of emotional prosody by native and non-native listeners and speakers, i.e. Chinese and Dutch listeners and speakers, including Dutch L2 learners of Chinese.

What is the cost of visual complexity? This dissertation sets out to determine the effect of the complexity of word formation on the legibility of Arabic and the role that vocalization plays in reading.