She bridges the gap between research and practice, has excellent research skills and is pleasant to work with: these words of praise were lavished on Sabine van der Asdonk (29) when she won the Gratama Science Prize 2021 in June. In this interview she explains more about her research into vulnerable…

This thesis discusses the constructions relevant to Object Shift from the intonational perspective, by presenting experimental data from all the Scandinavian languages.

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…

This book celebrates Maarten Mous, professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University.

Did your grandfather or grandmother also study in Leiden? And your parents, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters...?

Peter Rodrigues contributed a chapter 'Human Rights and the Best Interests of the Child in European Family Reunification Law' in the book by Bergamini E., Ragni C. (Eds.), Fundamental Rights and Best Interests of the Child in Transnational Families.

During the first year of life, babies adapt to the language they hear around them. In the event of hearing difficulties, this can lead to a language deficiency, which is not so easy to resolve, says Professor of English Linguistics Janet Grijzenhout. Inaugural lecture 19 March.

Mark Klaassen presenter at the Reuniting Families: From Access to Integration event organized by the EU office of the Red Cross in Brussels.

From Crisis to Critique

This work provides a typologically oriented description of clause linkage strategies in Ket, a highly endangered language spoken in Central Siberia. It is now the only surviving member of the Yeniseian language family with the last remaining speakers residing in the north of Russia’s Krasnoyarsk pro…

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 project investigates the influence that Arabic (esp. dialectal Arabic) has had on the Berber languages of Northern Africa.

About 90 per cent of Austronesian and Papuan languages are under threat of soon becoming extinct. Marian Klamer is the only professor in the world who researches both these language groups. She records languages before they disappear and sheds new light on the history of Indonesia. Inaugural lecture…

A delegation of the Child Law Department has attended the World congress on family law and children’s rights in Dublin, from 4-7 June. This congress organised once in every four years was hosted by prof. Ursula Kilkelly (University College Cork). Over 600 people attended the congress; professionals…

‘Visibility and secrecy are both valuable tactics and should not be antagonized in LGBT movements, ’ says Jingshu Zhu. Zhu will defend her dissertation on Wednesday 21 February. Time for a short interview with the PhD candidate.

To properly understand how babies absorb a language we need to study the process from a number of different perspectives, linguist Claartje Levelt argues. She accepts her appointment as Professor of Language Acquisition on 27 March with an inaugural lecture entitled ‘Language in its infancy’.

Language is omnipresent: when you talk, app or meet in Teams. Understanding how we communicate with one another and what communication does to us is essential. In her inaugural lecture, Nivja de Jong will call to redress the balance between the sciences and the humanities.

Most families were utterly overwhelmed when they found out that their son or daughter had suddenly left for Syria, that is what Daan Weggemans, Marieke van der Zwan and Marieke Liem observe in their research on family members of Dutch jihadists.

Dr Jenny Doetjes was appointed Professor of Semantics and Language Variation in February. During her professorship Dr. Doetjes wishes to focus on charting linguistic patterns between languages that, at first glance, seem to have little to do with each other.

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 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…

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

During the ‘intelligent lockdown’ in the Netherlands this spring, the respondents in a Leiden study reported a mild increase in their stress levels. This extra stress could have a negative effect on families, particularly if parents already had psychological problems before the corona crisis.

Although domestic violence often affects multiple family members, parents and children are usually treated separately for their traumatic experiences. In collaboration with women's shelter Rosa Manus, forensic partner the Waag, the municipality of Leiden and their colleagues from LUBEC (Leiden University…

This study analyses the prehistory of a northeastern Siberian population, the Sakha, from both a molecular-genetic and a linguistic perspective.

This dissertation provides a comprehensive overview of the grammar of Bantawa, a Kiranti (Rai) language spoken in Eastern Nepal.

The Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society (VVI) and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) organize a two-day workshop on Indonesian Family Law on 4 and 5 October.

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.