The Linguistics Olympiad

Harold Somers & Cara Greene, CNGL, Dublin City University

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Linguistic Olympiads

History

Typical problems

AILO and ILO 2009

Collaboration among English-language Olympiads

Olympiads and school-level linguistics

AILO 2010, UKLO 2010, 8th ILO

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History of Linguistic Olympiads

Long tradition of linguistics and mathematics competitions, since 1960s in MoscowOther fields have Olympiads, notably sciences (physics, maths, chemistry, biology, philosophy, astronomy, geography), also arts etc.LOs in other Eastern European countries since 1980sFirst International Linguistics Olympiad Bulgaria 2003Moscow 2004, Leiden 2005, Tartu 2006, St Petersburg 2007, Black Sea (Bulgaria) 2008, Wrocław 2009Last ILO had competitors from 17 countries (see later)See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Linguistic_Olympiad

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Format

Individual and team problems

Problems require logical thinking and often involve (or reveal) some linguistic insights but …

… no formal knowledge of linguistics is assumed (even linguistic terminology is avoided) and …

… knowledge of any particular language should not be a particular advantage

(though language students are generally advantaged!)

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Typical problems

Quite varied, but always the information required for solving them is fully contained within the problem Translation problems

Set of phrases in foreign language + translations in EnglishFigure out vocabulary and/or grammar rules

Number problemsBasic arithmetic statements from which you have to figure out something about the counting system. Quite popular are languages with unusual systems, or where different words for the same number depend on the objects being counted.

Deciphering writing systems: very popular Questions about phonetics or phonetic systems, especially phonemics (though that terminology is not used)More “formal” problems include analysing and describing a language phenomenon in a set of "rules" that a computer could follow.

6HawaiianPuzzle by V. Belikov. English adaptation by Valentin Vydrin and Thomas E. Payne

Hawaiian is a Polynesian language, spoken fluently by about 2000 people.The following Hawaiian sentences, with their English translations, are about a girl named

Mele and a boy named Keone:1. He has seven elder brothers. Ehiku ona kaikuaana. 2. Mele has one brother. Ekahi o Mele kaikunane. 3. Keone has one younger brother. Ekahi o Keone kaikaina.4. Mele has no elder sisters. Aohe o Mele kaikuaana. 5. Keone has no sisters. Aohe o Keone kaikuahine. 6. I have one canoe. Ekahi ou waa.7. Mele has no younger sisters. Aohe o Mele kaikaina.

A: There are two possible English translations for the following Hawaiian sentence. What are they?

Aohe ou kaikuaana.B: Translate the following sentence into English and indicate who is speaking, Mele or

Keone:Aohe ou kaikuahine.

C. The following English sentences would be difficult to translate directly into Hawaiian. Explain why this is true.

Keone has one brother.Mele has one younger brother.

7JAPANESE –TE FORMS

Japanese verbs have a form ending in –te (or –de) which is a bit like the English –ing form of verbs, and is also used with kudasai to form a polite request, e.g. suwaru ‘sit down’ -> suwatte kudasai ‘please sit down’.

(a) From the following list of verb plain forms and their corresponding –te forms, can you say what are the “rules” for forming the –te form from the plain form?

(b) What would be the -te form of the following verbs?

kesu ‘shut’, matsu ‘wait’, nugu ‘take off’, tobu ‘jump’

(c) Can you say what the plain form of the following would be?

koide ‘row’, shimeshite ‘indicate’, kande ‘bite’

8NĬ XĬ HUĀN FOOTBALL MA?

Some explanation about characters and corresponding sounds is given …

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AILO 2009

Part of CNGL Outreach & Education

Format somewhat experimental

Collaborated with NACLO (and OzCLO) over problem selection

Sent out invitation letter in October to all schools in Ireland (c. 1200), targetting “Transition Year”, ≈ Y 11/12

Promised one or two training sessions

Responses from ~18 schools

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AILO 2009

Members of CNGL visited schools once or twice either side of Christmas

Worked through some practice problems

Talked in general about linguistics

Class sizes very variedWorst case ~60 kids, no teacher!

Typically though ~20 or fewer, usually with teacher

Teachers usually language teachers but not always

Second visit, groups often reduced to genuinely interested kids

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AILO 2009

Grand final in Dublin, April 2009

All participating schools allowed to bring 2 teams

We offered support for travel costs

Individual contest in morning, team contest in the afternoon (3 hrs each)

Despite bus strike, almost all schools turned up

~ 90 kids

Two schools from UK took part as guests (in own schools)

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ILO, Wrocław, PolandWe originally offered to take the winning team to ILO2/4 couldn’t make it so we took 2 best individuals23 teams from 17 countries

Each country allowed 2 teams

Individual and team events 3 hrs and 6 hrs resp.

All problems available in language of choiceVERY difficult problems!6 days – great social programme too (for the kids)

See http://www.math.uni.wroc.pl/~msliw/lingw/iol

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ILO, Wrocław, Poland

Individual winners were from Bulgaria and Poland

2 gold, 9 silver, 11 bronze

UK’s Ben Caller got a bronze (top 20)

Ireland’s Ruadhan Treacey got commended (top 50%)

Team comp won by USA (Korea 2nd, Moscow 3rd)

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Collaboration among English-speaking Olympiads

USA (incl. anglo Canada), Australia, Ireland, UK all organizing Olympiads

Agreed to collaborate in use of same problemsSetting and testing problems is a big overhead

Coordination in timing of rounds, and public release of used problems

NACLO, OzCLO and AILO all have a commitment to “computational” problems

Not a big deal

About 1/5 problems have a computational flavour

recent examples: spell checking, pronoun resolution, grammar writing

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Olympiads and school-level linguistics

Pupils and teachers VERY enthusiastic

Very common to find …closet linguists: pupils who know quite a lot already

serendipitous linguists: pupils who like this kind of thing, and didn’t know it was called linguistics

Teachers are not necessarily language teachers

Problems range over many aspects of linguistics though mainly “pure” rather than cross-disciplinary

No prior knowledge requiredthough problems offer a good vehicle to introduce concepts and (some limited) terminology

teachers often ask for recommendations for background reading

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AILO II, 1st UKLO , 8th ILO

We’re running it again in Ireland, but with some changesexpecting bigger participation – already have as many as last year, a month before registration deadline

will have a qualifying round in schools (like USA, Oz)

will offer training to individuals who achieve a certain standard

grand final again individual and team event, but with smaller numbers (elite)

Ireland team will be best 4 students

UKLO likewise will have a qualifying round taken in schools

best students will attend a training weekend from which UK team will be selected

8th ILO will be in Stockholm, end July 2010