Comparative Indo-European Linguistics

Specialisation of: Linguistics
Degree: Master of Arts in Linguistics
Mode of Study: Full-time
Duration: 1 year
Start date: September, February (Start in September is strongly recommended)
Language of instruction: English
Location: Leiden
Croho/isat code: 60815
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The specialisation in Comparative Indo-European Linguistics deals with the study and comparison of a large number of interrelated languages in Europe and Asia, offering you a unique and inspiring study programme within the Netherlands.
Not only will you be following the only course of its kind in the country, you will be able to study languages not taught at any other Dutch institute – for example, Armenian, Albanian, Avestan and Lithuanian.
Students who want to combine Indo-European Linguistics with an in-depth study of a language or a group of languages will be able to take advantage of the expertise offered by the Faculty of Humanities in such relevant subjects as Indology, Classics, Slavic, Persian and languages of the Ancient Near East.

The purpose of comparing the Indo-European languages is to determine the languages’ relationship to each other and the changes in the phonological, morphological and syntactic structure of the languages in their historical continuity. The ultimate aim is to look at the possibilities to reconstruct the language that was at the basis of the many separate languages of the Indo-European language family. Cultural-historical, religious and archaeological aspects are considered in the reconstruction process.

How did Dutch sound?

Michiel de Vaan

Dr. Michiel de Vaan explains how Dutch would have sounded 500, 1,000 and 1,500 years ago in the TV-show Man over woord.

Prof. Sasha Lubotsky

Sasha Lubotsky

“It is an enormous challenge to discover structure in a muddle of facts and language forms.”

“One of the most significant recent developments in my field is the renewed attention being paid to the distribution of lexemes among various branches of Indo-European. We have become more reluctant to ascribe words to the proto-stage. Words which have caused us problems for the past 200 years often appear to be of non-Indo-European origin.

With a plethora of studied languages and cultures and unique library collections, Leiden is an ideal place for the study of Indo-European linguistics. No Indo-Europeanist is able to cover all branches of Indo-European equally well, and it is very important to have colleagues you can approach with your queries about the origin or meaning of a particular word in Slavic, Sanskrit or Old English.

Furthermore, we have to collaborate with archaeologists and geneticists for the reconstruction of the life of Indo-European peoples. I have always been fascinated by ancient languages and by the fact that people have gone to such efforts to write down texts and to preserve them. I want to decipher these texts and to understand them. It is an enormous challenge to discover structure in a muddle of facts and language forms.”