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.

Shell, our country's largest company, is constructing a vast plastics plant in the United States. And it is doing so at a time when the European Union, led by the Netherlands, is launching a major pact to combat use of plastic.

Last year the research program Teaching and Teacher Learning of ICLON Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching had its recurrent external review.

The safety of students is a priority and hence an ever recurring issue at the NVIC. NVIC not only attaches great importance to the safety of its students, but also that its students feel safe.

Even though more than 4000 extra-solar planets are known today, only a small fraction of these has been captured in an image. To better understand the planet formation mechanisms in solar-like environments we started the Young Suns Exoplanet Survey (YSES).

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…

The LAK offers various writing courses. Explore the world of story creation. Learn the basic skills of fiction writing and, as a writer, find your own voice, taking the first important step from idea to story. Or explore poetic techniques. There is a wide choice of English-spoken workshops! During…

The recently opened ICPA (International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine) in The Hague will be responsible for coordinating the prosecution of Russia for the crime of aggression and possibly also the prosecution of Vladimir Putin. The ICPA aims to close the gaps…

Dear friends of the NVIC

In the first year, the Linguistics programme will provide you with a sound basis for specialisation, while training your academic competences. In the second year, you will choose one of our four specialisations. While focusing on this track in your second and third year, you may also choose electives…

Platform for research about heritage languages spoken in the Netherlands

A symposium on space diplomacy for experts and the general public will take place in The Hague on Monday 12 June. Everyone has an interest in learning more about this topic, says Professor Jan Melissen. ‘The scope of international relations has expanded beyond our planet.’

PhD Research Projects:

This dissertation attempts to describe the linguistic history of Hittite on the basis of a systematic etymological treatment of its entire inherited lexicon, precisely analyzing the phonological and morphological developments.

The one-year master’s in Linguistics is concerned with the knowledge, structure and use of language, studied from a wide range of perspectives. It trains students to systematically identify, describe and analyse language phenomena and to apply this knowledge to a specific area of interest.

The Tatiana Afanassjewa-lecture series is a series of public talks in Dutch by Leiden physicists on wednesday evenings, intended for everyone with an interest in physics.

Análisis y Conversión del Vocabulario de fray Francisco de Alvarado (1593)

This dissertation provides a grammatical description of the Awjila language, a small Berber language spoken in the Libyan oasis of Awjila.

In the spirit of 'unity in diversity', our objective is to promote insight into and appreciation for the wonder that the same physical laws and mathematical concepts apply to the whole of nature, from the largest to the smallest energy and length scales. We strive for the application of abstract theoretical…

When we are in a conversation, how do we know exactly when to respond, and how do we manage to respond so swiftly, yet without interrupting our interlocutors? Can speech melody – in particular utterance final “boundary tones” – help us determine who will speak next, or are these cues too late in the…

This PhD project investigates the forms, functions, meanings, and socio-cultural values embedded in Palenda, in order to understand how it reflects and shapes the worldview of the Muna people (Mieno Wuna) through metaphor.

This project investigates how sign languages change and spread over time, and how this is influenced by their transmission history.

From memorials to the armed forces to memory stones for individual victims. It was only later that the Holocaust took a central role in Western remembrance culture, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree notes. ‘Nationalists and human rights activists both invoke the experience of the Holocaust.’

Speech Prosody 2024 includes three workshops.

Professor of Molecular Astrophysics Ewine van Dishoeck is portrayed as a heroine in a pictorial children's book. ‘It starts with a dream' tells the stories of twenty exceptional Dutch women who have had a positive impact on society. The book aims to give young girls role models and encourage them to…