Ivo Wolsing (Leiden), Jacqueline Burek (George Mason University) and Lottie Thompson (Durham) are organizing a panel on Classical Learning in Medieval Europe at Leeds International Medieval Congress 2025. You are invited to submit an abstract by September 15.

Consumer societies are a global presence, and marketing practices have spread to all corners of the world. However, the loud and glaring performances of the big advertising companies and the hegemony of shopping malls makes us forget that there are many different markets, and many merchants who have…

The Faculties of Archaeology and Humanities at Leiden University invite applications for a part time Full Professorship in Classical Archaeology. Appointment as soon as possible but not later than 1 September 2016.

This project investigates how inhabitants of Leiden with a migratory background experience the extent to which their language and cultural background is welcomed in Dutch society and how this affects their identity, sense of belonging, and general wellbeing.

Commagene in its Local, Regional and Global Hellenistic Context

This PhD project investigates how Russian state-aligned media frame the war in Ukraine for international audiences and how these frames travel across borders, being adopted, adapted, or challenged by foreign media and political actors.

When and how was alphabetic writing introduced to Greece and the wider Mediterranean region?

Thijs Porck, teacher at English Language and Culture, has won the faculty teaching prize. He was lauded for his enthousiasm, his creative ways of teaching, and his commitment to his students.

What is the effect of a dynamic training in children’s inductive reasoning skills and how is it related to children’s school performances and language development.

Museum Boerhaave commemorated the hundredth anniversary of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity with the exhibition ‘Einstein & Friends’. The exhibition shined light on the famous physicist’s Dutch friends and his love for Leiden. A review featuring seven images can be found below.

This thesis investigates the grammar of Gaahmg, a Nilo-Saharan, Eastern Sudanic language spoken in the Blue Nile Province of North Sudan. The comprehensive description provides an analysis of the phonology, morphology, and syntax. Ten texts of various genre are given to help illustrated the grammar…

A new publication that brings together perspectives on language contact phenomena across temporal and spatial dimensions.

This project studies the theory and practice of moral education in the (Neo)Platonic tradition.

On this page you will find more information about the selected projects of the Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Fund for 2023.

Professor Roberta D’Alessandro, Chair of Italian Language and Culture at the Leiden University, has been awarded one of Italy’s highest honors: she is now a Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy (Cavaliere dell'Ordine della Stella d'Italia). D’Alessandro was presented with the honor on June 2, the…

Lucien van Beek studied Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University, focusing on Ancient Greek. As of February 2015, Van Beek will be project manager at Ineke Sluiter’s Greek-Dutch dictionary project.

What evaluative languages (errors, mistakes, vices, etc.) did book reviewers employ? To what extent and on what occasions did they invoke early modern vices? And to what extent did this differ across fields or change over the course of the century?

If idioms employed in codes of conduct could be as idiosyncratic as examples suggest, then to what extent did early modern language of vice, too, persist in this genre?

In this project, the hypothesis that language contact crucially impacts the development of spatial grammar and phonology is investigated.

Leidens's Classics and History rank 6th and 15th place in the QS World University Rankings by Subject. Every year, QS ranks universities all over the world on academic reputation and research impact, grouped by subject. Linguistics (23), Languages (39) and Religious Studies (40) also do well in the…

The one-year (60 EC) master in Classics and Ancient Civilizations provides intensive and comprehensive training covering the entire range of present-day research on the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome and the Ancient Near East.

This PhD project investigates how language models can be used to extract structured knowledge from text in a way that is accurate, robust, and applicable to real-world use cases.

It is often claimed—in both scholarly and popular sources—that guide dogs for the blind are a modern innovation. But as this project demonstrates clearly, guide dogs also existed during the medieval period.

“Very French and very impressive.” Those are the words drs. Isabelle van de Calseyde used to describe the reception at the French embassy residence in The Hague on 2 June 2015. There, she and dr. Sjef Houppermans were presented with an distinction for their remarkable services to the French language…

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.

Aetiologies seem to gratify the human desire to understand the origin of a phenomenon. However, as this book demonstrates, aetiologies do not exclusively explore origins.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research has awarded dr. Lucien van Beek a Veni grant. This grant offers young researchers the possibility to develop their innovative ideas for a period of three or four years. The awarded research proposal focuses on the Ancient Greek dialects' contribution…

The project

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…

It may well be the best tradition in Leiden: immortalising your name in the ‘Sweat Room’ after receiving your diploma. But is it really immortalised? The names were at risk due to crumbling plaster. Fortunately, a crowdfunding project was able to save this beloved ritual.

On 26 November 1940 Professor Cleveringa held his courageous speech protesting against the dismissal of his Jewish colleague, Professor Meijers. Cleveringa was arrested and the university was closed. Every year the university honours Cleveringa with a chair and meetings throughout the world.

This study investigates the perception and production of emotional prosody by native and non-native listeners and speakers, i.e. Chinese and Dutch listeners and speakers, including Dutch L2 learners of Chinese.

Extreme Scoring, the research project by ACPA PhD Michael Drapkin, calls for increased emphasis on chamber orchestras as a way of preserving the symphonic works of the classical music canon and expanding them to new audiences.

Haunting the future through poetry

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.