News
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Nancy Kula: ‘Languages are very diverse’ 15 April 2024
Nancy Kula has been Professor of African Linguistics since 1 February. Now is a good time to hear more about her field of expertise and academic inter...
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How AI helps map sign languages 15 April 2024
Like spoken languages, sign languages evolve organically and do not always have the same origin. This produces different ways of communication and ann...
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How live bloggers balance speed and credibility 28 March 2024
PhD candidate Sebastiaan van de Lubben has written live blogs about Leiden politics. But how do you go about covering an event while it unfolds? ‘You ...
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‘Language is part of your identity; we need to teach children this from an early age’ 04 March 2024
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 e...
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Vici grants for seven researchers from Leiden University 29 February 2024
From research on stellar winds to sign language: an impressive seven researchers from Leiden University will receive a prestigious Vici grant from the...
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How the rise of AI is creating new opportunities for computational linguists 20 February 2024
With the rise of AI, interest in computational linguistics and language models has taken flight. But machines are far from being able to go it alone. ...
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Supercomputer ALICE is even more powerful, and that is good news for many disciplines 03 January 2024
Supercomputer ALICE has been expanded, making it even more powerful and faster. This means researchers and students can work with heavier models. From...
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Translating humorous children's poetry? Content matters most 11 December 2023
Translating poetry is notoriously difficult. Translating poetry in such a way that the humorous nature of a poem remains intact is even more difficult...
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City Photographer for a year: ‘Unfortunately, I found that I’m not really very visual’ 09 November 2023
Julia van Alem had never held a camera before, but she and her classmates were appointed as the City Photographer. ‘This project helped me learn how t...
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Artificial intelligence and clay tablets: not yet a perfect match 10 October 2023
Translating ancient texts, filling in missing parts of clay tablets: articles are popping up more and more often about the possibilities offered by ar...
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The mechanism behind a friendly chat: 'Puzzle gets unravelled bit by bit' 01 September 2023
A friendly chat is more complicated than you might think. As soon as the other person finishes talking, you already have an answer ready. But how do w...
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Why is that word there? Research on language structure completed 01 August 2023
Communication is the transmission of information. All day long we are busy explaining and making things clear to each other, but exactly how we do tha...
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How seals point to an undocumented prehistoric language 03 July 2023
Language can be a time machine: we can learn from ancient texts how our ancestors interacted with the world around them. But can language also teach u...
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NWO funding for three new humanities PhD students 15 June 2023
Three PhD candidates from the Faculty of Humanities have successfully applied for funding from NWO for new PhD candidates. The three upcoming research...
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Lips pouted or not? How improved speaker recognition can help forensic investigations 12 June 2023
Police investigations use wiretapped phone recordings as investigative material fairly regularly. But how do they know that the voice on the recording...