Historical geo data are gaining in importance. Provided that they are exactly geo referenced, they can be stored into a GIS and thus be combined with all kinds of maps (topographical, pedological, etc.) and datasets. This makes it possible to analyze historical developments in space and time on a detailed…

Johannes Boer's research intends to question the way explicit knowledge is applied in order to restore and perform music from the past with the intention to get as close as possible to its original meaning.

This book, edited by Joost Augusteijn, Constant Hijzen and Mark Leon de Vries, explores how democratic regimes have dealt with anti-democratic forces in society, from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century.

In this paper for Defence Strategic Communications, Alastair Reed and Jennifer Dowling seek to show the importance of historical narratives to propaganda by identifying and exploring five ways in which such narratives are exploited to reinforce the extremists' 'competitive system of meaning'.

In The Golden Mean of Languages, Alisa van de Haar sheds new light on the debates regarding the form and status of the vernacular in the early modern Low Countries, where both Dutch and French were local tongues. The fascination with the history, grammar, spelling, and vocabulary of Dutch and French…

The map application includes information from old and new buildings archaeological projects. This makes it possible to investigate whether water facilities (wells, cisterns) and waste facilities (cesspits, sewers) were the privilege of Leiden’s wealthy elite in the late 16th and 17th centuries or whether…

This volume provides a sample of the most recent studies on Spanish-English codeswitching both in the Caribbean and among bilinguals in the United States.

This paper explores whether multilateral surveillance and policy coordination under the ES was based on a path-changing or a path-dependent mechanism

How did the life course, with all its biological, social and cultural aspects, influence the lives, writings, and art of the inhabitants of early medieval England?

Stylianos Irakleous defended his thesis on 6 February 2020

Political scientist Nicolas Blarel (Leiden University) analyses the background and implications of India’s prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel.

Chinese materia medica (CMM), comprising a diverse array of natural substances from plants, animals, and minerals, has been integral to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) throughout history. This study investigates the dynamic evolution of CMM, noting shifts in species for improved therapeutic effects…

In this project, the hypothesis that language contact crucially impacts the development of spatial grammar and phonology is investigated.

On December 12th, Andreas Krogull succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Andreas on this great result.

This paper explores the historicity of state and Buddhist accounts of the monk Xuanzang 玄奘 (602-664), arguing that in the reconstruction of Xuanzang’s life and career we ought to utilize the former to help adjudicate the latter.

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!

In his groundbreaking Imagined Communities, first published in 1983, Benedict Anderson argued that members of a community experience a

When did the Mali Empire disintegrate? What does the Sunjata heritage demonstrate about the political situation after 1600?

The history of sign languages of deaf people is severely understudied. The historical linguistics of sign languages offers a fundamentally new perspective on the history of human languages. This project addresses the dearth of knowledge about historical sign language linguistics through a large-scale…

How do sign languages change and spread over time, and how is this influenced by their transmission history?

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…

What makes a good historian? When historians raise this question, as they have done for centuries, they often do so to highlight that certain personal attitudes or dispositions are indispensable or studying the past. Yet their vieuws on what virtues, skills or competencies historians need most differ…

Last week, aviation professionals and leaders from around the world gathered in Chicago to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Chicago Convention, the landmark treaty that laid the foundation for modern international civil aviation and established the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).…

The project aims to explore Eurasian elk's role in the ecosystems of the past and its relationship with humans through analysis of its distribution and habitat in the Netherlands.

On the 22nd of February, Ami Okabe successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Ami on this achievement!

The Dutch phrase ‘ijs en weder dienende’ (literally, ‘ice and weather serving’) is a good example of what is known as a participle clause and is perhaps one of the most unfathomable grammatical constructions in Dutch. For what (or who) is serving whom (or what)? It actually means ‘ice and weather permitting’.…

Since the adoption of agriculture people have cultivated fields. The project concerns all kinds of aspects related to raising crops.

How have human-environmental entanglements changed in the Gulf of San Miguel, Darien, Panama, from the first traces human practices through to the present?

On Tuesday 30 April 2024 Jonny Russell successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

On October 9th, Peter Alexander Kerkhof succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Peter Alexander on this great result.

How did disability become a global concern? In this project we will identify the contribution of international agencies, governmental and non-governmental organizations and, just as importantly, disabled people themselves, to the IYDP and by showing the connections, interactions and entanglements between…

Research at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) focuses on linguistic variation and diversity. In order to create more awareness and scientific understanding of this topic, research activities are clustered around six (overlapping) umbrella programmes. Many of our researchers are active…

Lecture, Sociolinguistics series

In Migration and Membership Regimes editors Ulbe Bosma, Gijs Kessler and Leo Lucassen bring together ten essays in an analytical framework which looks beyond the Transatlantic migration of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a deliberate attempt to incorporate the experience of earlier periods…

A new publication that brings together perspectives on language contact phenomena across temporal and spatial dimensions.

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

This thesis studied in depth the energy use and CO2 emissions of the industrial sector in China.

Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) has a longstanding tradition in research in the world’s languages and features unique linguistic expertise. At LUCL, we help develop interdisciplinary approaches to linguistic phenomena by facilitating the interaction between data-driven and theory-driven…

Knowledge and culture subproject 3:

Has the industrial sector in China effectively been decarbonizing in recent years, across different regions and subsectors, and is it plausible that it will reduce its CO2 emissions in conformity with national and internationally pledged emission goals?

The research master’s programme in Linguistics at Leiden University combines leading expertise with a flexible programme format.