Marc van Oostendorp
Professor of Dutch & Academic Communication
Linguist working on Dutch phonology, language variation and language policy. Editor of Neerlandistiek and the Journal of Linguistics; writer for a broad audience on language, education and academic culture.
Recent work
Atlas van het dialect in Nederland — Lannoo, September 2026
Ninety years of dialect research from the Meertens Institute, made readable. With Kristel Doreleijers, Alexia Kerkhof and Sterre Leufkens.
The Darwinian Mind of the Machine — Nordlyd 49 (2026)
Rethinking the training of language models as evolution rather than learning. With Roberta D’Alessandro.
Editor, Journal of Linguistics — Cambridge University Press
One of four editors, since 2019.
Recent writing
Latest blogposts
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New paper: The Darwinian Mind of the Machine: Rethinking LLM Training as Evolution
Together with Roberta D’Alessandro (Utrecht University). Full reference: van Oostendorp, M., & D’Alessandro, R. (2026). The Darwinian Mind of the Machine: Rethinking LLM Training…
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Cahiers d’études métriques / Journal of Metrical Studies
I have joined the editorial board of a new electronic open-access journal devoted to metrics: Cahiers d’études métriques / Journal of Metrical Studies Cahiers…
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Appeared: The CELEX Lexical Database
The following short encyclopedia article just came out: van Oostendorp, M. (2026). The CELEX Lexical Database: History, structure, applications, and accessibility. In H. Nesi…
For students
Prospective BA, MA & PhD
I supervise theses and dissertations in phonology, dialectology, language variation and interlinguistics. What that involves is on the Teaching page.
Contact
You can most easily contact me on e-mail (I often do not see messages sent to me by social media).