The Department of linguistics and philology is the home of Asian and African languages and cultures (Assyriology, Chinese, Hindi, Sanskrit, Iranian languages, Semitic languages, Swahili, Turkic languages), the European classical languages (Greek and Latin), and general and computational linguistics (language technology).

The mission of the department is to pursue and and promote excellent, internationally distinguished, diversified, and ethically sound research with a respect for tradition, as well as close attention to the needs and dynamics of today’s society.

Some important themes in the department's research are:

Ancient languages and cultures: In Assyriology, for instance, the study of cuneiform texts on clay tablets, which are better preserved than other writing materials, allows large-scale detailed reconstructions of the cuneiform archival and library systems. The content, physical appearance, and context of ancient cuneiform and alphabetic texts are studied. Ancient texts are also used for reconstructions of ancient cities like Babylon.

Computational linguistics and language technology: The computational linguistics group has a broad research orientation with a focus on multilingual systems, especially machine translation, and systems for grammatical analysis of text, in particular dependency-based parsing.

Language acquisition: Naturalistic and experimental studies of child and adult (second) language learners are carried out for a variety of languages, focussing on lexicon, morpho-syntax and discourse pragmatics.

Language competition and policy issues: Diminishing and endangered languages are approached from different perspectives and in relation to several language families. Empirical work addresses description, documentation, maintenance, and revitalization of these languages. Recent projects concern the Baltic area (Karaim), Caucasia (Noghay), Central Asia and China (Balochi, Kazakh, Miao-Yao), Himalaya (Kinnauri, Harijan Boli, Tinani), and Iran (Balochi, Gilaki, Mazandarani, and Kashkay).

Literary and cultural recycling: Literary and cultural recycling of ancient material in different periods, concerning style, rhetoric and narrative techniques, is addressed mainly in Latin, Greek (with Byzantine studies) and Semitic
languages.

Literature in global contexts in history and the present: This line of research includes research on theoretical aspects of literary theory (e.g. on Chinese literary theory), genre and stylistics, thematic studies dealing with e.g. literature in war and conflict (Hindi literature, Palestinian and Israeli literature, Pashto literature), literature in relation to national identity (Kurdish literature), gender issues (as in Arabic, Chinese and Turkic literature) and marginal literatures (e.g. of marginal social and religious groups, exile literature).

Manuscript studies, critical editions and textual criticism: Within Latin, Greek (with Byzantine studies), Semitic languages and Iranian languages the department has a long tradition of work with manuscripts (palaeography, codicology and cataloguing) and critical editions (theological and philosophical texts, hagiography, early modern dissertations, scientific and learned literature).

Single language studies: Languages are studied from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. The focus lays on single languages, on language families, on typological comparison, or on language contact processes. Methodwise, these studies are solidly empirical: Field linguistics, studies based on large mono- or multilingual corpora, and philological text interpretation feature prominently in various projects.