On the 17th of September, Jermy Balukh successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Jermy on this achievement!

This study presents a full descriptive account of the grammar of Mualang, covering the major features of phonology and morphosyntax as well as issues related to pragmatics.

In this region researchers at LUCL have specific expertise in studying Austronesian and Papuan languages. China is another important region where Leiden linguists conduct research.

On February 28th, Promise Dodzi Kpoglu succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Dodzi on this great result.

Descriptive linguistics at LUCL covers documentation and descriptive analysis of lesser-studied languages as well as typological and historical comparison.

On the 29th of June, Martin Kohlberger successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Martin on this achievement!

On May 23rd, Ernanda succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Ernanda on this great result.

On February 20th, Gulnaz Sibgatullina succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Gulnaz on this great result.

This dissertation contains a detailed description of the Carib language, including the most extensive dictionary of the language to date. This knowledge is based on work from earlier sources and field work which was carried out by the author over a ten-year period, particularly in Galibi, a Carib village…

On the 4th of September, Elisabeth J. Kerr successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Elisabeth on this achievement!

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

On the 12th of May, Rita Barrera Virhuez-Eloranta successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Rita Barrera Virhuez-Eloranta on this achievement.

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

Almost all languages of Europe and of a large part of western Asia belong to a single language family, which is called Indo-European, and which includes modern languages like English, Dutch, Russian, Farsi, but also ancient ones like Ancient Greek, Latin, Hittite and Sanskrit.

For the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of complex organic molecules, the building blocks of life, in a protoplanetary disc surrounding a young star. The discovery reaffirms that the conditions that spawned the Earth and Sun are not unique in the Universe. The results are published…

Today, ESA’s Gaia mission releases its new treasure trove of data about our home galaxy. Astronomers, led by the Leiden astronomer Anthony Brown, describe strange ‘starquakes’, stellar DNA, asymmetric motions and other fascinating insights in this most detailed Milky Way survey to date.

Detecting planets during their formation stages is crucial for understanding the history and diversity of fully developed planetary systems like our own. However, observing young planets directly is challenging because they are often deeply embedded within their host protoplanetary discs, rich in gas…

Although migration and integration have become important concepts today as a result of globalization, migration movements, integration, and multiculturalism have always been part of the history of Europe. Few people realize how many ethnic groups participated in migration within Europe or into Europe…

An international team of astronomers, including astronomers from Leiden University, has found the missing link in the path taken by water through star-forming clouds and young stars to comets and planets. They did so with the help of the ALMA observatory in Chile. The researchers published their findings…

In the past 30 years, over 5,000 planets have been discovered outside our solar system. One common exoplanet is the lava world, a hot super-Earth with oceans of liquid lava. Mantas Zilinskas developed models to simulate possible atmospheres of these. Those simulations provide guidance for astronomers…

The ALMA Local Expertise Group (Allegro) is located in the Leiden Observatory (Sterrewacht). Professor Ewine van Dishoeck: ‘The Netherlands has played an important role in establishing ALMA. Thanks to this subsidy, we can now reap the scientific benefits.'

The European Research Council has awarded an Advanced Grant to Prof. dr. Maarten E.R.G.N. Jansen for the research project

Three Leiden astronomers have shown that some asteroids that are considered harmless for now, can collide with Earth in the future. They did their research with the help of an artificial neural network. The results have been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The present market regulations make it extremely risky to invest in green energy, and this is impeding the fight against climate change. This is what Oscar Kraan writes in his dissertation. PhD defence on 25 April.

As Director-General of the ESO for the past ten years, Leiden University astronomer Tim de Zeeuw had ‘the best astronomy job in the world’. Back at the Leiden Observatory, he is focusing on the first 3D map of the Milky Way.

Just like us, plants also produce growth hormones, and they also go through an ageing process. The study of the genes and mechanisms behind these processes is useful not only for crop breeding and agriculture, but also for medical research. That is the view held by Professor of Plant Developmental Genetics…

The Tatiana Afanassjewa-lecture series was a series of public talks in Dutch that was started during the Covid-19 lockdown. The talks were given by Leiden physicists on wednesday evenings, intended for everyone with an interest in physics.

The present investigation aims at exploring whether the instruction provided at secondary schools in the capital meets the requirements of Communicative Language Teaching and whether the aims of improving learners’ communicative proficiency are met.

This study offers a comprehensive but balanced grammatical analysis of Ik (Icetod), Northeast Uganda’s last thriving Kuliak language.

On the 13th of November, Hanna Fricke successfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Hanna on this achievement.

This proposal aims at the construction of a comprehensive and authoritative scientific grammar for Dutch and Frisian in the form of a virtual language institute: het Taalportaal/the Language Portal.

This dissertation presents an in-depth study of the clause-typing system in Ecuadorian Siona.

On the 6th of April, Toni Pedrós Caballero successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Toni on this achievement!

On the 16th of June, Ndokobai Dadak successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Ndokobai on this achievement!

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

This book presents an in-depth grammatical description of Kumzari, a mixed language spoken in remote villages on the Musandam Peninsula in northern Oman.

This project examines how speakers store and process regular pitch variation.

This dissertation provides a description of Konso, a Cushitic language spoken by about 250,000 speakers in the South-West Ethiopia.

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…

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

On the 26th of January, Alex Reuneker successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Alex on this achievement!

At LUCL we study almost all aspects of a wide range of African languages. From phonology to anthropological linguistics, from theoretical syntax to urban youth languages, we study it all.

Imagined Voices deals with a form of composition, music with on-screen text, in which the dynamic between sound, words and visuals is explored.

How do we process language and speech? How do we integrate information at different levels – intonation, sentence structure, meaning, tone, words, sounds - and how does information at one level interact with information at another level?

From where litter ends up to which languages are spoken in Leiden and The Hague: over 50 interesting, surprising, complex and entertaining questions were sent in for the Citizen Science project to mark our 444th anniversary. Not one but two Citizen Science projects will be starting this year in Leiden…

A source of inspiration for readers who are curious to understand how people move and convince each other

On the 21st of September, Carlos Benítez-Torres successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Carlos on this achievement!

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…