This research cluster aims to analyse and interpret the formation and transmission of Graeco-Roman culture by exploring the relationships between cultural products (texts, objects, practices) and their societal and historical contexts.

In his dissertation Michiel Hooykaas outlines the results of six empirical research projects focused at biodiversity awareness in the Netherlands, specifically people’s knowledge about animals.

From the smallest level of interaction among families and close friends, over the meso-level of schools, shops, churches, religious communities and companies, to the highest level of nation-states and international organisations: Language Policy and Planning (LPP) is everywhere!

Reasserting America in the 1970s brings together two areas of burgeoning scholarly interest.

The article Sing with Me, Sing, Brother, of América by Sing with Me, Sing, Brother, of América Benjamin Fogarty-Valenzuela is published in Current Anthropology Volume 62.

The Leiden University Institute for History has a wide-ranging academic scope unique for the Netherlands. This is directly reflected in the participation of her staff in various Master's and Bachelor's programmes at Leiden University.

This collaborative research group (CRG) facilitates the synergies of researchers engaged with African languages and documentation of texts conducted in East Africa, paying particular attention to ‘endangered archives’ and ‘endangered languages’.

On the 8th of May, Laura Migliori succesfully defended her PhD-thesis and graduated. LUCL congratulates Laura on this great result.

This book explores the production and use of medieval manuscripts that contain classical Latin texts. Six experts in the field address a range of topics related to these manuscripts, including how classical texts were disseminated throughout medieval society, how readers used and interacted with specific…

This thesis describes the use of the evolutionary approach in the study of language change, aiming to provide a better insight in the mechanisms that play a role in language change and to validate this approach in the field of language change.

In this article Fisher, Klein & Codjo introduce the FOCUSdate Project and they show how the sentiment data provide unique abilities to analyze Russia's and Iran's reactions to US policies and events and NGO human rights campaigns.

This project applies a social-historical approach to examine and contrast various groups of African-American slave refugees who sought freedom within North America between 1800 and 1860. It innovatively distinguishes between different “spaces of freedom” for runaway slaves, namely sites of formal, semi-formal,…

Languages of The Hague is a collection of columns on languages and language which were published between 2016 and 2018 in the weekly newspaper Den Haag Centraal.

D.P. Kok defended his thesis on 10 October 2017

On Monday 4 September, Professor Christopher Martinez, from the Universidad de Concepción (University of Concepción), Chile, was invited by the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law to introduce his forthcoming book at our university.

Muhammad Adlin Sila examines the range of ways Bima Muslims constitute their Islamic identities and agencies through rituals and festivals. In response to their surroundings, what it means to be a Muslim is constantly being negotiated.

This dissertation provides an up to date description of the Indo European lexical stock of Armenian (ca. 500 entries) with systematic inclusion of unused data that are found in Armenian dialects.

Drawing is one of the most unique human behaviours. Like language, drawing is a mode of communication and a cognitive tool that from an early age allows us to interact with others. Is the early development of drawing skill influenced by the social environment? If so, how?

This research project focuses on the extended documentation and investigation of these non-Austronesian (‘Papuan’) languages.

How does contemporary art and culture represent nuclear contamination in post-nuclear landscapes?

The Modern Devotion: pone of the most influential religious initiatives in the late medieval Low Countries.

The aim of the project is to unravel the genetic and contact relations between the indigenous languages of Mesoamerica (Mexico and western Central America) and the Middle Andes region (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia), as part of a larger endeavor to understand the historical process of the peopling of the Americas…

This edited book presents case-studies and reflections on the role of languages and their analytic study in development practices across four regions: Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific.

This is the first comprehensive commentary on a section of Xenophon's Anabasis in English for almost a century.

This interdisciplinary study focuses on (trans)national ethnic and popular networks, combining historical-ethnographic and computational methods to understand the ‘workings’ of networked conflict interfering in the increasingly violent conflict in the Sahel (Africa) and beyond. The project focuses on…

This abrupt climate change of 8200 years ago (the so-called 8.2k calBP climate event) has received wide attention among natural scientists, also because of today's rapid climate changes and their impact on our own society. The archaeological implications, however, have not been investigated so far.…

LiTechAe: Percussive stone tools related to stone masonry techniques seen through experimentation and use-wear analysis.

During her study of Latin America, Tineke Floor laid the intercultural foundation that has served her well in her career. Floor currently works as Director Europe at African Parks, an NGO that promotes nature conservation in Africa. How does she look back on her studies? And why the leap to another…

Languages spoken around the world differ vastly from  the more familiar Indo-European languages. The courses in this theme aim to introduce you to the immense linguistic diversity still found in the world today. 

A thorough description of the relationships among languages and their social environment in a given context, reflecting an ecological perspective, involves attention to the agency of local actors, and the policies, discourse, and ideologies that surround them.

On 27 November the official opening of LeidenGlobal will be celebrated in the Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde/National Museum of Ethnology. LeidenGlobal is a platform for global expertise that responds to the call from Minister of Education and Culture Jet Bussemakers that academic and cultural institutions…

This study describes religion in Java.

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.

How do speakers adapt to multilingual contexts?

This 862-page monograph is a grammar of Thangmi, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the districts of Dolakha and Sindhupalcok in central-eastern Nepal.

Collaborative linguistic research on indigenous languages of Ecuador: description, documentation & materials

This project will study the cultural meaning of the mythological figure of Orestes within the ancient Greek imagination, as it emerges from various literary sources from the archaic and classical periods.

By studying language you can reconstruct the history of different communities, even when no other historical sources, such as written documents, are available. In the coming years, researchers Willem Adelaar and Marian Klamer will be carrying out this kind of reconstruction in areas of great linguistic…