Computer scientist Tessa Verhoef received a Best Paper Award during the ‘ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility’. The paper emphasised the need for interdisciplinary research in sign language processing. The authors state that linguists and computer scientists should collaborate with…

LUCL member prof. dr. Holger Gzella has been elected as member of the Academia Europaea (The Academy of Europe).

The role of religion in the identity construction of LGBTQIA+ folks

For many deaf Ghanaians, Ghanaian Sign Language is their first language. But for more deaf signers to be able to fully participate in society, more sign language interpreters, deaf school teachers and family members need to be trained. What better way to facilitate this by means of a Ghanaian Sign Language…

For many deaf Ghanaians, Ghanaian Sign Language is their first language. But for more deaf signers to be able to fully participate in society, more sign language interpreters, deaf school teachers and family members need to be trained. What better way to facilitate this by means of a Ghanaian Sign Language…

From Los Angeles to Tokyo, Urban Sociolinguistics is a sociolinguistic study of twelve urban settings around the world.

Our language is adapted to the context in which we humans communicate. But computers ‘think’ differently. What would a language be like whose structure was optimally adjusted for use by humans and machines? Tessa Verhoef is trying to find the answer.

Our language is adapted to the context in which we humans communicate. But computers ‘think’ differently. What is the optimal form of a language for human-machine communication? Tessa Verhoef is trying to find the answer.

The human brain stores not only individual words, but also all kinds of abstract information about these words. Research by Leiden linguists has shown that speakers have ready access to this information.

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.

Linguist Sara Petrollino has written the first detailed grammar of Hamar, a language spoken in south-west Ethiopia that has some unique characteristics. PhD defence 10 November.

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.

Novel language learning activates different neural processes than was previously thought. A Leiden research team has discovered parallel but separate contributions from the hippocampus and Broca's area, the learning centre in the left hemisphere. The right hemisphere of the brain also seems to play…

We deeply cherish our natural and cultural World Heritage, so it seems; when historical monuments and sites are destroyed by war or natural disaster, we are mourning collectively. But what if this World Heritage status is not just a preservation label, but a smokescreen for social and political conflicts…

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…

In this dissertation, the types of context Dutch speakers need to interpret the poly-interpretable word ergens ‘somewhere/anywhere’ are studied.

On the first day at a new job, you have sweaty palms, nerves race through your system, and you feel insecure. Now, a couple of months later these feelings have left. You know what to do in your new role and have become part of the organization. The process leading to this result is called organizational…

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

How might viola and string quartet playing in the performer-centered, moment-to-moment and communicative style heard on early recordings be brought about today?

Mining time series is a machine learning subfield that focuses on a particular data structure, where variables are measured over (short or long) periods of time.

Lecture

Language research generates a wealth of information about people: from our history and cultural differences to the way we learn. Leiden University shares its knowledge and passion for this topic via de MOOC on ‘Miracles of Human Languages’ and the web dossier on Language Diversity.

Will Leiden be the first city to have wall poems in sign language? It will, if sign language researcher Victoria Nyst has her way. She recently started a crowdfunding campaign together with the Leiden Language Museum and the TEGEN-BEELD Foundation.

A study concerning the collective memory in the region of the Bene lo Ya/ Ene lo I'ya, Sierra Norte, Oaxaca.

This dissertation provides a grammatical description of Ghomara Berber, a Berber language spoken in North-West Morocco by about 10.000 people. The grammar consists of a description of the phonology, the morphology and the syntax. In the appendices a number of texts and a wordlist are included. The data…

De menselijke geschiedenis strekt zich ver uit vóór de tijd waarin de mensen opschreven wat er zoal gebeurde.

Vertrekkend vanuit een communicatief perspectief en concentrerend op mediatiseringsprocessen, formuleert deze dissertatie een alternatief voor het probleem van equivociteit binnen de studie naar populaire muziek.

Victoria Nyst's love for sign language was sparked when she accidentally ended up at a deaf school while studying African linguistics. The university lecturer has since been awarded a Vici grant to research the history of these languages.

Lecture, This Time For Africa! series

This study explores the role of linguistic data in the reconstruction of Dolgan (pre)history by analyzing contact-induced changes and using them to infer information about the nature of the contact settings in which they occurred.

By making smart use of available data, the health and care of people can be substantially improved. Marco Spruit wants to use language and machine learning in the coming years to identify and solve the biggest care issues in the region of The Hague. He has been appointed Professor of Advanced Data Science…

The impact of war extends beyond destroyed buildings and torn families. In bilingual Ukraine, the ongoing war with Russia is a major driver for increasingly discarding the Russian language. What does this mean for the position of Russian in Ukraine?

Berber languages have long been banned from public life in North Africa, but the situation has changed drastically. Linguistic research is generating new insights on the distant past and on present-day Dutch Moroccans. This is the finding of Maarten Kossmann, the only professor of Berber Studies in…

Important dates in the Academic Language Centre calendar

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…

What motivates learners in bilingual education to learn English and how can and do teaching practices contribute to that motivation?

The Academic Language Centre (ATC) is one of the cornerstones of Leiden University. Director Gea Hakker explains how this organisation is providing quality (online) language courses and meeting new demands.

PhD defence