The UK Linguistics Olympiad
Some facts and figures
Dick Hudson
LAGB September 2011
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International History
• 1965: First Linguistics Olympiad in Moscow, run
by Uspensky, Kibrik, Polivanova, Zalizniak, and
Zhurinsky.
• 2003: First International Linguistics Olympiad
(IOL), in Bulgaria.
• 2009: USA launched the English Language
Computational Linguistics Olympiad, a
consortium of English-speaking countries which
share test material.
• 2011: Ninth IOL in Pittsburgh, USA, with 102
contestants representing 19 countries.
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• Website: www.ioling.org/
UK History
• 2009: Two UK schools competed as guests of
the All-Irish olympiad (AILO), and one team
represented the UK at the IOL.
• 2010: UKLO founded as a sub-committee of the
Committee for Linguistics in Education.
• Since 2009, the UK has won
– 3 bronze medals
– 1 best-solution prize (Nathan Somers)
– 3 honorable mentions at the IOL.
• 2013: the UK will host the IOL
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UK infrastructure
• UKLO committee:
– 10 linguists
– 3 school teachers
• A team of volunteer markers
(http://bit.ly/uklo_markers)
• A team of problem builders
(bit.ly/uklo_problemsetters)
• 13 sponsoring organisations
• A patron (Christine Ohuruogu, MBE)
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UK organisation
• Early February: Round 1
– taken in schools
– three levels of difficulty: Foundation, Intermediate,
Advanced
– Advanced papers are marked centrally, the others by
the school
• Late March: Round 2
– residential, in a University (2012: York, 2013: ?)
– three resident tutors
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UK take-up
2010
2011
2012
38
57
603
1226
Advanced/Foundation
2.06
2.13
Advanced: male/female
1.4
0.86
schools entering
state/independent
pupils competing
1.3
1
170
1.4
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Age distribution (2011)
Y7
Y8
Foundation
32
Advanced
0
Y9
29 140
3
49
Y10
119
Y11 Y12
47
101 179
29
Y13
9
355 144
Compare the Maths Challenge: 600,000 per year!
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A sample problem: Japaneasy
• By Harold Somers
• Japanese is written using a variety of scripts including
Chinese characters. But for the purposes of learning to
read, and in the case of unusual words, it is quite
common to use a phonetic system, hiragana. Shown
below on the left are eight examples of simple Japanese
words, with their pronunciation in a random order on the
right. English meanings are also given but for information
only – they play no part in solving this problem.
• Q1. (4 marks) Use the table in the answer sheet to show
how the words on the left correspond to the
pronunciations on the right.
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The data
1. あか
A. kita ‘north’
2. さと
B. kao ‘face’
3. でんき
C. denki ‘electricity’
4. あさ
D. tsudo ‘every time’
5. かつどん
E. asa ‘morning’
6. かお
F. katsudon ‘pork and rice’
7. きた
G. aka ‘red’
8. つど
H. sato ‘village’
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More questions
Q2. (3 marks) How would you pronounce the
following Japanese words?
(a) おでき ‘eruption’
(b) だん ‘group’
Q3. (3 marks) How would you write the following
words in hiragana?
(a) satsu ‘banknote’
(b) kanten ‘point of view’
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Volunteers needed
• for marking (5/10 hours in February)
• for building problems
• ?? for training teachers ??
My email address: dick@ling.ucl.ac.uk
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