The master’s programme in Dutch linguistics at Leiden University provides you with a deep understanding of the Dutch language and the multifaceted research into the structure and use of the Dutch language. During the programme you will not only gain in-depth knowledge of Dutch linguistics, but also…

The purpose of this programme is to join knowledge and insights from linguistics, literary analysis, and rhetoric, for the purpose of developing a set of methods for the stylistic investigation of any type of text in Dutch.

Linguistic research on a unique collection of Dutch letters allowed us to gain access to the every-day language of people from various walks of life. Private letters by men, women and even children have been elaborately explored in the Letters as Loot researchprogramme, initiated and directed by prof.…

How did common people write in the late eighteenth century? Little is yet known on this topic, since our knowledge is mainly based on printed texts written by a small part of the (male) elite population. This dissertation – written from a sociolinguistic point of view – gives us new insights into late-…

The Dutch prefix ge- in historical perspective gives first of all a general account of the development of the word formation processes involving ge- in which special attention is paid to the participial ge-.

The main goal of this project is to answer the question: how did Dutch acquire its own, distinctive linguistic characteristics?

From 2 to 5 September 2015, Leiden served as the stage for one of the world’s largest linguistics conferences: the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE) 2015 Annual Meeting. Marianne Mithun, a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara and outgoing president of the SLE, is not surprised that…

The linguistic project constitutes the connection between the two other subprojects. It consists of two parts.

In this dissertation, a corpus of 595 seventeenth-century letters (mainly private ones) written between 1664 and 1672 is examined from a sociolinguistic perspective.

Platform for research about heritage languages spoken in the Netherlands

There is not a day without language: we use it to read, to write, to communicate. But do you ever wonder how you learned to speak your own language when you were a child? And how, as an adult, do you learn new languages? Linguistics has the answer to those questions. In the BA Linguistics at Leiden…

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 goal of the field of Applied Linguistics is to apply the findings and the techniques from research in linguistics to solve practical language-related problems in society.

Theoretical linguistics seeks to understand the underlying principles of the nature of human language.

LIAS researchers working in the field of linguistics hold dual appointments in LIAS and the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL).

This dissertation investigates A'-dependencies in Standard German, Zurich German and Dutch where the dislocated constituent is indirectly, i.e. not transformationally, related to the position where it is interpreted. The analysis is carried out within the Principles & Parameters framework.

The Linguistics specialisation is a one-year programme within the master's degree in Linguistics at Leiden University. In the course of the programme you will be able to focus on a specific thematic or disciplinary route, reflecting the linguistics expertise present at Leiden University.

This research programme brings together LUCL researchers focusing on theoretical and experimental linguistics. By using theoretical, experimental and digital tools and methods, these researchers seek to understand the nature of language, language acquisition, language variation, and how language is…

Chinese Linguistics at Leiden University offers you an excellent opportunity to concentrate on the different aspects of the languages of China, especially their sounds and syntax.

The research programme Descriptive and Comparative Linguistics brings together LUCL researchers who focus mainly on descriptive and comparative linguistics.

German Language and Linguistics at Leiden University offers in-depth knowledge of German linguistic theory and practice.

English Language and Linguistics at Leiden University focuses on English language usage and linguistics around the world, including in countries where English is spoken as a second language or as part of a mixed language.

The research master’s programme in Linguistics at Leiden University combines leading expertise with a flexible programme format.

French Language and Linguistics at Leiden University offers a wide array of courses covering theoretical and applied linguistics, including language acquisition, syntax, and semantics.

Italian Language and Linguistics at Leiden University draws on diachronic and synchronic perspectives to bring you an advanced qualification in Italian linguistics.

This thesis attempts to describe the entire corpus of Latino-Punic inscriptions, found in Tripolitania.

The MA Neerlandistiek/Dutch Studies at Leiden University provides you with an international view on the Dutch language and culture. You will be able to study the full breadth of Dutch studies: from the Middle Ages to today.

Study Information, Online Experience

More than a thousand 17th- and 18th-century Dutch letters from seized ships are now available online. The letters are a gold mine for researchers wanting to study the everyday language used by men and women during this period.

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…

LUCL research falling under this programme is dedicated to increasing the scientific understanding of the ways in which linguistic and cultural factors shape human language in space and over time.

Lexicographical description of Greek; production of Greek-Dutch dictionary

Psycholinguistic research

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.

The research programme Formal Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics brings together LUCL researchers who focus mainly on formal theoretical and experimental linguistics.

In this dissertation, the types of context Dutch speakers need to interpret the poly-interpretable word ergens ‘somewhere/anywhere’ are studied.

Humanities, Centre for Linguistics

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.

There are over 7,000 languages in the world and over half of the world’s population is bilingual. But how do all these people use their language? And how do these languages differ from one another? Under the slogan of ‘Interconnecting linguistic diversity,’ the researchers from the Leiden University…

Describing a new language for the first time is an exciting and challenging intellectual experience.

On December 5th, Matthias Pache succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Matthias on this great result.

The project Going Dutch investigates why the link between being or becoming Dutch, and knowledge of Standard Dutch is so often taken for granted in public discourse, by diving into its historical roots.

The Leiden Summer School in Languages and Linguistics offers a varied program of specialised courses in Descriptive linguistics, in Chinese, Germanic, Indo-European, Indian, Iranian, Semitic languages and linguistics, as well as a number of introductory linguistic courses.

In the Bachelor's programme Dutch Language and Culture at Leiden University you will learn to analyse how people use the Dutch language, culture and media and to place it in an international perspective.

Terms used by literary critics in characterizing the style of novels are often impressionistic (‘baroque’, ‘austere’, ‘vivid’, ‘cerebral’ etc.). Foundations for such evaluations are usually not provided. A scientific way of studying and explaining style is lacking in present day Dutch Studies. Suzanne…

So far it has been impossible to compare large sets of syntactic constructions in large sets of languages systematically and automatically. The online availability of parallel text corpora and software tools to align, enrich, search and analyse them has the potential to make automatic massive systematic…

This project aims to open up the pre-Islamic linguistic history of Arabia through the systematic study of the Thamudic inscriptions within a digital humanities framework.