LUCL member prof. dr. Holger Gzella has been elected as member of the Academia Europaea (The Academy of Europe).

Alex Elias, alumnus of the Research Master Linguistics, has won the prestigious Jan Brouwer Thesis Award for his thesis. Elias, who is currently working as a PhD-student at UC Berkeley, wrote his thesis under supervision of prof. dr. Marian Klamer.

A new challenge for Felix Ameka. The senior lecturer at the Centre for Linguistics has been appointed professor by special appointment of Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Diversity in the World. ‘I am looking forward to promoting ethnolinguistic diversity and vitality.’

Who was professionally involved in language between 1550 and 1650? And what were the financial returns of this language sector? Assistant Professor Alisa van de Haar has received an ERC Starting Grant to map out the situation in Northwest Europe between 1550 and 1650.

If you want to follow a full academic programme, the next step after obtaining your bachelor’s is a master’s degree (MA) at a Dutch or international university. And there may be no better place for your further master’s study than Leiden University!

Study information

Study information

The Summer School in Languages and Linguistics at Leiden University has been a yearly highlight since 2006.

Research at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) focuses on linguistic variation and diversity. In order to create more awareness and scientific understanding of this topic, research activities are clustered around six (overlapping) umbrella programmes. Many of our researchers are active…

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

Within the Linguistics specialisation, you can choose one of the suggested thematic routes. Depending on the theme of your choice, the programme prepares you for a career in various fields, such as speech technology, artificial intelligence, education, language documentation and language policy.

Humans can see the world through the eyes of other humans and imagine what they know, want, and intend. This competence is known as Theory of Mind.

The ultimate aim of the project is to find out whether there are such things as

How is generative AI changing the way we learn, communicate, and make sense of the world today? As AI tools become part of everyday life, they don’t just produce text but shape meaning, influence trust, and impact how we find and share information. This project explores how people use, experience and…

Linguist Wataru Uegaki received an NWO Grant of 58400 Euro for his research project 'In search of semantic universals in the modal domain'. With this money Wataru can compile a database and organise workshops. An interview with Wataru:

In the new video series 'The World of Linguistics', alumni and academics talk about their passion for their field. Student Aline-Priscillia is particularly curious about how language is processed in the brain.

This project, South American population history revisited: multidisciplinary perspectives on the Upper Amazon (SAPPHIRE), investigates population dynamics in western South America on the basis of traces in the geographical, genetic, archaeological, ethnological, and linguistic record.

A linguistic prehistory of the Tarim Basin in Northwest China

Taal als sleutel tot het begrijpen van de mens.

Professor Felix Ameka and university lecturer Maria del Carmen Parafita Couta have received an NWO Open Competition grant together with Enoch Aboh (University of Amsterdam) to do research on ‘code-switching’: switching languages by multilinguals.

A linguistic test of hypotheses rooted in genetics and archaeology.

This project investigates language choice and language use among Swiss mercenaries in the VOC and in the Dutch Colonial Army.

Studying linguistics at the Leiden University Centre of Linguistics (LUCL) is a challenging but rewarding experience. There are few places in the world where such a broad range of languages are studied from so many different perspectives.

For associate professor Jenneke van der Wal, things have been good recently. After being awarded a Vici and Una Europa grant, she has now also received an Ammodo Science Award. ‘It is a nice confirmation that I am doing valuable work.’

Exhibition

Where does Dutch come from? Newly appointed Professor Alwin Kloekhorst looks for an answer to that question in millennia-old languages from Anatolia, the Asian part of present-day Turkey. 'A new interpretation in one of the Anatolian languages can have consequences for dozens of other languages.'

Police investigations use wiretapped phone recordings as investigative material fairly regularly. But how do they know that the voice on the recording actually belongs to the suspect? PhD student Laura Smorenburg is trying to answer that question.

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.

The current project aims to revive the idea that sound inventories are structured according to a small set of universal principles by applying insights from current phonological theory and by making use of modern database technologies and data assessing methodologies.

The LLMC relies on two key pillars within the humanities: the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) and the Dutch Language Institute (INT).

The Research Master in Linguistics is a specialised research-based programme offered at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL). It is modelled on LUCL’s unique profile of studying language diversity by means of a wide variety of theoretical and methodological approaches.

The scientists at Babylab Leiden ensure that important knowledge is gathered about how babies learn to understand the world around them. Meet our Babylab Team and get to know our researchers!

LLMC’s research includes:

The specialisation in Modern Languages explores the structure, acquisition, history and use of five languages.

The AAM-LR project aims at building a demonstrator of a web service that will help filed researchers to annotate audio- and video-recordings.

Bringing together a globally representative team of scholars, this Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of comparative syntax, the study of universal and variable properties of the structure of building blocks in natural language.

Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) is a reputable institute in the field of linguistics, offering excellent research and education opportunities covering a broad range of languages of the world.

Innovation through repetition. That is how university lecturer Jurriaan Witteman describes his research on the automatic processing of angry voices in the brain. The original research was conducted 20 years ago, but, with an NWO grant, Witteman is now going to see if those results are accurate.

Syntacticians study how words combine into larger units (phrases and sentences) in human languages and how the combinatorial possibilities determine word order and grammatical relations between parts of a sentence.

If you’ve graduated from the programme and you want to further your academic education you can continue with a master’s programme. It will earn you the title of Master of Arts (MA) and significantly increase your chances of finding a position at academic level.