The International Linguistics Olympiad is the sixth newest of a group of fourteen International Science Olympiads. Its abbreviation IOL is deliberately chosen not to correspond to the name of the organization in any particular language, and member organizations are free to choose for themselves how to designate the competition in their own language. This olympiad furthers the fields of mathematical, theoretical, and descriptive linguistics.
Format
The setup differs from most of the other Science Olympiads, in that the olympiad contains both individual and team contests. The individual contest consists of 5 problems, covering the main fields of theoretical, mathematical and applied linguistics – phonetics, morphology, semantics, syntax, sociolinguistics, etc. – which must be solved in six hours. The team contest has consisted of one extremely difficult and time-consuming problem since the 2nd IOL. Teams, which generally consist of four students, are given three to four hours to solve this problem. Like nearly all International Science Olympiads, its problems are translated and completed in several languages and as such must be written free of any native language constraints. However, unlike other olympiads, the translations are provided by the multilingual Problem Committee, a body of experts independent of the delegates' team leaders. Because competitors could gain some advantage if they are familiar with one or more of the language groups which are the subject of some of the assignments, problems are increasingly based on some of the world's lesser known languages. Fortunately, with more than 6,000 languages spoken world-wide there are plenty to choose from. The committee has a policy of not using artificial or fictional languages for its problems. The presence of an independent Problem Committee and Jury means that team leaders do not have to be experts in the field : they can work closely with their teams providing last-minute coaching throughout the week of the competition. In any case, the most helpful ability is analytic and deductive thinking, as all solutions must include clear reasoning and justification.
History
The first linguistic olympiad for secondary school students was organised in 1965 in Moscow, Russia, on the initiative of Alfred Zhurinsky, eventually a prominent philologist but then only a fifth-year student of linguistics, in an organizing committee chaired by the mathematician Vladimir Andreevich Uspensky and with the participation of the linguists Alexander Kibrik, Anna Polivanova and Andrey Zaliznyak. It was held regularly until 1982 and resumed again in 1988. Similar olympiads were founded in Bulgaria, Oregon, USA and Saint Petersburg, Russia. After the foundation of the Bulgarian olympiad, teams of winners of the Moscow Linguistic Olympiad successfully competed in Bulgaria and vice versa, demonstrating good potential for international cooperation in the field.
Venues, year by year
IOL 2003
The first edition of IOL then was realized from September 6 to 12, 2003, in the mountain resort Borovetz, Bulgaria, chaired by Alexander Kibrik from Moscow State University and with the participation of six countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Netherlands and Russia. The first International Jury was composed of Ivan Derzhanski , Alexander Berdichevsky, Boris Iomdin and Elena Muravenko. The five problems at the individual contest concerned Jacob Linzbach's "Transcendental algebra" writing system, Egyptian Arabic, Basque, Adyghe, and French. The team contest consisted of three problems, on Tocharian, the use of subscripts as indices, and on performative verbs.
IOL 5 was held from July 31 to August 4, 2007, at the Hotel Gelios, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Chaired by Stanislav Gurevich, it received 15 teams from 9 countries; Spain, Sweden and USA came for the first time. In that year, it was decided that each country can send one or two teams, consisting of four students each, with the first team's costs fully covered by the host country. Also, the host country could send a third team. The five problems at the individual contest were in Braille, Movima, Georgian, Ndom, and correspondences between Turkish and Tatar. The team problem was in Hawaiian and focused on genealogical terms.
IOL 2008
IOL 6 was held from August 4 to 9, 2008, at the Sunny Beach Resort, Sunny Beach, Bulgaria. Chaired by Iliana Raeva, it gathered 16 teams from 11 countries, including the first time for Germany, Slovenia and South Korea. The Problem Committee was chaired by Ivan Derzhanski. The five individual problems were in Micmac, Old Norse poetry, Drehu and Cemuhî correspondences, Copainalá Zoque, and Inuktitut. The team problem was about correspondences between Mandarin and Cantonese using the fanqie system.
IOL 2009
IOL 7 was held from July 26 to 31, 2009, at the University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland. Chaired by Michał Śliwiński, it received 23 teams from 17 countries, with Australia, United Kingdom, India and Ireland sending teams for the first time. The Problem Committee was chaired by Todor Tchervenkov. The subject matter of the five individual problems covered: numerals in the Sulka language, Maninka and Bamana languages in the N'Ko and Latin scripts, traditional Burmese names and their relation with dates of birth, stress position in Old Indic and the relation between grammar and morphology in classical Nahuatl. The team problem was in Vietnamese.
IOL 2010
IOL 8 was held from July 19 to 24, 2010, at Östra Real Hostel, Stockholm, Sweden. Chaired by Hedvig Skigård, it received 26 teams from 18 countries, including first time for Norway and Singapore. The Problem Committee was chaired by Alexander Piperski. The individual contest consisted of five problems covering: relations between various verb forms in Budukh, the Drehu counting system, Blissymbolics, mRNAcoding, and the connection between Sursilvan and Engadine dialects in Romansh. The team problem involved translating extracts from a monolingual Mongolian dictionary.
IOL 2011
IOL 9 was held from July 25 to 30, 2011, at the Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. Chaired by Lori Levin, it received 27 teams from 19 countries, including Brazil, Canada, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam for the first time. The Problem Committee was chaired by Adam Hesterberg. The problems of the individual contest required reasoning about Faroese orthography, Menominee morphology, Vai syntax, Nahuatl semantics and the structure of the barcode language EAN-13. The team contest involved the rules and structure of Sanskritpoetry.
IOL 2012
IOL 10 was held from July 29 to August 4, 2012, at the University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Chaired by Mirko Vaupotic, it received 34 teams from 26 countries, first time for China, Greece, Hungary, Israel and Japan. The Problem Committee was chaired by Ivan Derzhanski. The five problems at the individual contest were in Dyirbal syntax, Umbu-Ungu numbers, Basque pronouns, Teop syntax, and Rotuman semantics. The team problem involved recognizing country names in Lao language.
IOL 2013
IOL 11 was held from July 22 to 26, 2013, at the Manchester Grammar School, Manchester, UK. Chaired by Neil Sheldon, it received 35 teams from 26 countries, including first time teams from Isle of Man, Taiwan and Turkey. The Problem Committee was chaired by Stanislav Gurevich. The five problems at the individual contest were about Yidiny morphology, Tundra Yukaghir semantics, Pirahã phonology, Muna syntax, and telepathy based on English. The team problem involved translating Martin Seymour-Smith's list of the 100 most influential books from Georgian written in the 9th century Nuskhuri script.
IOL 2014
IOL 12 was held from July 21 to 25, 2014, at the Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing, China. Chaired by Jiang Yuqin, it received 39 teams from 28 countries, with Pakistan and Ukraine sending teams for the first time. The Problem Committee was chaired by Jae Kyu Lee. The five problems at the individual contest were about Benabena morphology, Kiowa morphophonology, Tangut kinship, Engenni syntax, and Gbaya. The team problem involved matching the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to their translations in Armenian.
IOL 2015
IOL 13 was held from July 20 to 24, 2015, at the American University in Bulgaria, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. Chaired by Aleksandar Velinov, it received 43 teams from 29 countries, with Bangladesh, France and Kazakhstan sending teams for the first time. The Problem Committee was chaired by Bozhidar Bozhinov. The five problems at the individual contest were about Nahuatl and Arammba numbers, morphology in the Besleneydialect of Kabardian, Soundex, Wambaya syntax and the rules of Somali poetry. The team problem involved using extracts from a monolingual Northern Sotho dictionary to build a grammar and lexicon of the language.
IOL 2016
IOL 14 was held from July 25 to 29, 2016, at the Infosys Development Center in Mysore, India. Chaired by Dr. Monojit Choudhury and Dr. Girish Nath Jha, it received 44 teams from 31 countries, with Nepal and Sri Lanka sending teams for the first time. The Problem Committee was chaired by Boris Iomdin. The five problems at the individual contest were about spatial deictics in Aralle-Tabulahan, Luwian hieroglyphic script, Kunuz Nubian morphosyntax, Iatmül semantics and Jaqaru morphology. The team problem involved matching over 100 utterances in Taa to their IPA transcriptions.
IOL 2017
IOL 15 was held from July 31 to August 4, 2017, at Dublin City University in Dublin, Ireland. Chaired by Dr. Cara Greene, it received 43 teams from 27 countries, with Canada sending a Francophone team for the first time. The Problem Committee was chaired by Hugh Dobbs. The five problems at the individual content were about Berom numbers, Abui possessives and semantics, Kimbundu morphosyntax, Jru' written in the Khom script and Madak morphophonology. The team problem involved establishing correspondences between 87 emojis and their descriptions in Indonesian.
IOL 2018
IOL 16 was held from July 26 to 30, 2018, at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, Czech Republic. Chaired by Vojtěch Diatka, it received 49 teams from 29 countries, with Malaysia and Denmark competing for the first time. The Problem Committee was chaired by Maria Rubinstein. The five problems at the individual contest concerned Creek stress, Hakhun morphosyntax, Terêna phonology, counting in Mountain Arapesh and kinship in Akan. The team problem examined phonological correspondences among the three Jê languages Mẽbêngôkre, Xavante and Krĩkatí.
IOL 18 was to take place from July 20 to 24, 2020, in Ventspils, Latvia. Due to the widespread coronavirus pandemic, the International Board of the IOL decided to postpone the event to July 19 to 23, 2021.
Summary
The different editions of IOL can be summarized on the following table:
Participant countries
Individual medalists
Team medals
All-time medal table
Media coverage
Newspaper article in The Age "It may be semantics, but linguistics can be a team event". July 27, 2012.
