When we read a text, we think we know who wrote it, but in the early modern period, manuscript production was often a collaborative or ‘socialised’ enterprise involving secretaries and scribes who physically wrote what the author dictated.

On the 13th of February, Matthew Sung successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Matthew on this achievement!

The Disticha Catonis by Catenaccio of Anagni. A text in vernacular from Latium (late 13th - early 14th century)

WORLDING AMERICA researches how ‘play’ has been a key force in the past and present process of creating America as a coherent and hegemonic ‘world,’ from 1503 to the present.

The NWO-funded Vidi project “American foreign policy and liberalism” challenges the idea that the United States has created and sustained a “liberal international order” since World War II. It instead explores the ways in which illiberal ideologies – such as those underpinning racial hierarchy at home…

How did nineteenth-century non-Anglophone translators and authors creatively engage with the poem Beowulf?

On 18 July, Olga Ceran held a presentation titled ‘Family law in a united Europe: Child abduction and child relocation’ at a summer school on 'European integration at the Franco-Spanish border: A cross-border perspective' which took place at the Cité des Arts in Bayonne (France).

On 23 March 2016, Dr. Nelleke Koffeman, Assistant Professor at the Europa Instituut of Leiden Law School, taught at the University of Milan (Italy) at the invitation of Dr. Chiara Ragni.

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

Using brain imaging to discover the area in the brain that recognizes emotion.

On 7 March, Carlos Roos (lecturer, philosopher, researcher) gave a talk about popular music at Utrecht University, organized by the education committee of Study Association Hucbald (Musicology at Utrecht University).

Teachers of English as a foreign language in China and the Netherlands have different notions of themselves as teachers in relation to cultures associated with the English language. This is stated in the doctoral thesis of Dadi Chen, who graduates from the Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching…

On 23 April 2021, Professor Alfred Vertegaal from the Department of Cell and Chemical Biology at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) delivered his inaugural lecture ‘Unraveling and exploiting cellular communication codes’. Vertegaal used the opportunity to describe how research in the field…

The Leiden Summer School in Language and Linguistics is visited every year by many scholars worldwide. Four of the 120 participants of the 7th Summer School in 2012, share their view of Leiden.

Can smart suggestions help translators work better with machine translation? As machine translation becomes the norm, professional translators are asked to correct its output; a process called post-editing. But how can we make this easier and more effective?

This thesis reports on a study that examined the development of L1 teachers’ practical knowledge when they researched and implemented concept-context rich education in an action-research setting.

My research addresses the function of the much-debated particle -nā in Biblical Hebrew, often translated with “please”, from the point of view of the most important ancient Bible translations (Greek, Syriac, Latin). It combines textual criticism, translation technique, discourse pragmatics, and the…

On 7 October the beginners course Dutch has successfully started with a pizza kick-off.

PhD ceremonies in the Academy Building will be much easier for family, friends and other non-specialist audience members to follow after the summer. The Doctorate Board is pleased to have decided that as of 1 September, all Leiden PhD candidates will begin their PhD defence with a lay talk. ‘It can…

This book presents the first comprehensive description of Tafi, one of the fourteen Ghana-Togo Mountain (GTM) languages, spoken by approximately 4,400 people in the southeastern part of Ghana. The description consists of thirteen chapters and is based on a corpus gathered during two fieldwork periods…

This dissertation investigates the grammar of Makhuwa-Enahara, a Bantu language spoken in the north of Mozambique. The information structure is an influential factor in this language, determining the word order and the use of special conjugations known as conjoint and disjoint verb forms.

This study tests whether behavioural problems at a young age are related to early reading and mathematics development.

In this dissertation, electrophysiological (EEG) and behavioural measures are used to investigate how allophonic tonal variants and sub-phonemic features are processed during Mandarin and Dutch speech production, visual processing of written words and reading aloud.

Promotor: F.S. de Boer Co-promotor: P. T. de Gouw

This PhD project investigates the different uses of Mandarin

Looking for a great day out during the Christmas holidays? The University’s Rembrandt Route in Leiden is a fun and educational activity for both young and old. This special outdoor exhibition takes in seven University buildings, and there’s a treasure hunt for children [in Dutch]. Get your free English…

This thesis investigates the connection between tonal realization and tone change (tone sandhi) in Wenzhou Chinese, and whether and how such a connection is conditioned by prosodic structure and focus marking.

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Online presentation

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This special issue explores social meaning from the perspective of current theories in pragmatics.

The Swahili coast has a long-standing history of transoceanic Islamic connections dating back to the 25th century. Yet, print, has changed the world – not only ours. This project unravels unique forms and archives of intellectual history emerging from within South-South connections. In East Africa Indian…

This project employs a systematic experimental approach to examine the interaction of these two hitherto independent lines of research (tone sandhi and focus realization) in six dialects of Chinese, which lie on a continuum between dialects with dense tonal distributions and sparser distributions. In…

In 2020, Leiden University launched its stimulated interdisciplinary programs, including one focused on regenerative medicine.

Leiden University and the Municipality of Leiden worked together on the development of the Schilperoort Park. This new public space is situated in the north-eastern part of the Leiden Bio Science Park. The park ambience is extended into the adjacent residential area, where former medical laboratories…

The Vici project Through the Hands of Signers invites everyone to participate in its kick-off symposium on the History of Sign Language Emergence, Transmission, and Change on July 10 2026.