The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo is an academic centre providing services for scholars and students from the supporting universities.

How have Muslims imagined the world before Muhammad? Stories about pre-Islamic times feature across all genres and periods of Arabic literature, and while many writers have derided the pre-Islamic past as disorderly paganism, others celebrate its memory as a time of Arab nobility and fine literature.…

How did Fustat develop between 640 and 750 to become the capital of Egypt? At the time Egypt was a province of the Islamic empire - the caliphate - that had been started by the prophet Muhammad. Original sources used by Arabist Jelle Bruning give new insights into the city. PhD defence on 2 April.

The CNaVT exam is the official, international exam of Dutch as a Foreign Language for all who learn Dutch all over the world. The Catholic University of Leuven organizes the exam. The Dutch Language Union has commissioned this collaboration.

This historical study argues that the Mandaean religion originated under Sasanid rule in the fifth century, not earlier as has been widely accepted. It analyzes primary sources in Syriac, Mandaic, and Arabic to clarify the early history of Mandaeism.

Wordt het nog wat met de Arabische lente?

A better understanding of Morocco and the Arab world is crucial for international relations and for Dutch society. This was the key message of Minister of Education, Culture and Science Jet Bussemaker and Ahmed Aboutaleb, Mayor of Rotterdam, at the opening of the renewed Netherlands Institute in Morocco…

Alternative perspectives and sources of colonial literature haven’t received much attention before now. School books have long ignored the violence that accompanies colonialsm. How can we paint an honest picture?

Research has shown that the impact of feedback can be very powerful on second language acquisition. However, how to provide adaptive feedback on speaking skills in foreign languages and how to provide differentiated support in secondary schools in regular secondary schools classes of often 25-30 students?…

The Arab women are coming! That was Kim Ghattas’s message on 6 March in the 25th Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture. It won’t be easy and it could take a long time, but they can do it. The Arab Springs have inspired them, and they’re not letting go of that.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

The aim of this thesis was to study the link between hearing loss, language skills, and social functioning in deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children. Sufficient language skills are an essential prerequisite to develop appropriate communication skills, in order to join in conversations with others.…

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

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

This dissertation aims at enhancing our knowledge of whether a CI provides sufficient access to auditory speech input to acquire verbal morphology by comparing outcomes of CI children to those of their normal hearing peers and to those of children with specific language impaired (SLI).

This collection considers such issues as the cognitive, linguistic and emotional benefits of speaking two languages, the perceptions, attitudes and issues relating to identity in minority language areas, and the number of grammatical aspects amongst those who speak these minority languages.

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

On the 6th of July, Anthony Jakob successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Anthony on this achievement!

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…

There is no human society that does not employ a rich and diverse language. This course introduces you to linguistics, featuring interviews with well-known linguists and with speakers of many different languages. Join us to explore the miracles of human language!

This project aims at describing the Khoisan languages !Ora (Korana/Griqua) and !Ui of South Africa.

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…

Knowledge and culture subproject 2:

On the 27th of February, Marta Morgado successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Marta on this achievement!

Islam at 250: Studies in Memory of G.H.A. Juynboll is a collection of original articles on the state of Islamic sciences and Arabic culture in the early phases of their crystallization.

The project aims at highlighting and strengthening Dutch research into the diversity of the world’s languages from a historic and a cognitive perspective.

This dissertation reports on the requirements for the design and development of teacher assessments, and examines the possibility of developing an assessment procedure that complies with the formulated requirements.

On the 12th of December, Eleanor Dutton successfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Eleanor on this achievement.

Literature, Language, and Multiculturalism in Scandinavia and the Low Countries presents a ground-breaking comparative approach to the study of multicultural literature.

What made the early Islamic empire so successful and have we missed the story by neglecting crucial evidence? The 7th-century Arab conquests changed the socio-political configurations in the Mediterranean and Eurasia forever. Yet we do not really know how the Arabs managed to gain dominance of this…

This project focuses on two Mayan languages in contact: Awakateko and K’iche’. With the aim to create a database to be accessible to researchers, students, and indigenous activists interested in Mayan languages, this project will train Mayan speakers on transcription, translation, and analysis of…

Currently the focus of the project is the development of a tool that utilizes dimensionality reduction techniques in order to analyze and interpret the lexical and phonological variation between different sign languages. Additionally, the application of deep learning techniques for the extraction of…

This dissertation presents a description of Sandawe, a Khoisan language spoken by approximately 60 000 speakers in Dodoma Region, Tanzania.

The English language and culture study programme also exists in the form of a part-time programme.

What can languages spoken in the Lesser Sunda Islands today tell us about the histories of its various population groups?

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.

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.

This dissertation provides a description of the language Tadaksahak as it is spoken by the Idaksahak, a people group of about 30,000 living in the most eastern part of Mali and several isolated places in western Niger.

Very generally speaking, this study aims at questioning and re-defining the mind-body epistemic problem within contemporary dance and art culture.

On the 10th of November, Sara Petrollino succesfully defended her PhD-thesis and graduated. LUCL congratulates Sara on this great result.

The general objective of this thesis is to determine a typology of verbal derivation in Ethiopian Afro-asiatic languages.

This book offers a linguistic anthropological analysis of multilingualism among the Matsigenka, Quechua, and Spanish languages on the coffee frontier of Southern Peru, set against the backdrop of economic transformation and deforestation in the world’s last great forest.