International Linguistics Olympiad

The International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) is one of the newest in a group of thirteen 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 other Science Olympiads, in that the program 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, 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 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. In practice, this is often difficult and competitors may gain some advantage if they are familiar with one or more of the language groups which are the subject of some of the assignments. However, the most helpful ability is analytic and deductive thinking, as all solutions must include clear reasoning and justification (as in solving mathematical problems).

History

The first linguistic olympiad for secondary school students was organised in 1965 in Moscow, Russia, on the initiative of Alfred Zhurinsky (1938–1991), 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 (1984), Oregon, USA (1988) and Saint Petersburg, Russia (1995). Since the foundation of the Bulgarian olympiad, teams of winners of the Moscow Linguistic Olympiad have successfully competed in Bulgaria and vice versa, demonstrating good potential for international cooperation in the field.

Venues, year-by-year

The first edition of IOL then was realized in September, 2003, in the mountain resort Borovetz, Bulgaria, chaired by Alexander Kibrik from Moscow State University (MSU) and with the participation of six countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Netherlands and Russia. The first International Jury was composed by the professors Ivan Derzhanski (president)(Institute for Mathematics and Informatics of Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), Alexander Berdichevsky (MSU), Boris Iomdin (Russian Language Institute) and Elena Muravenko (Department for Russian Language, Russian State University for the Humanities). The five problems at the individual contest concerned Jacob Linzbach's "Transcendental algebra" writing system, Egyptian Arabic, Adyghe, and French. The team contest consisted of three problems, on Tocharian, the use of subscripts as indices, and on performative verbs.

IOL 2 was held from August 2 to 6, 2004, in the Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH), in Moscow, Russia. Seven countries participated, with the first participation of Poland and Serbia and Montenegro. The five problems at the individual contest were in Kayapo, Latin, English, Lakhota and Chuvash. The team problem was in Armenian.

IOL 3 was held in 2005 in Leiden, Netherlands, with the participation of 13 teams from 9 countries, Finland and Romania for their first time. The five problems at the individual contest were in Tzotzil, Lango, Mansi, Yoruba and Lithuanian. The team problem was in Figuig.

IOL 4 was held from August 1 to 6, 2006, at the University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia. Chaired by Renate Pajusalu, it received also 13 teams from 9 countries, with Lithuania sending a team for the first time. The five problems at the individual contest were in Lakhota, Catalan, Khmer, Udihe and Ngoni (or Chingoni), a language spoken by the Ngoni people in Tanzania.

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 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 (specifically, drottkvætt), Drehu and Cemuhî correspondences, Copainalá Zoque, and Inuktitut. The team problem was about correspondences between Mandarin and Cantonese using the fanqie system.

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 (University of Lyon, France). 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 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, mRNA coding, and the connection between Sursilvan and Engadine dialects in Romansh. The team problem involved translating extracts from a monolingual Mongolian dictionary.

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 (Germanic) orthography, Menominee (Algic) morphology, Vai (Mande) syntax, Nahuatl (Uto-Aztecan) semantics and the structure of the barcode language EAN-13. The team contest involved the rules and structure of Sanskrit poetry.

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 (Pama-Nyungan) syntax, Umbu-Ungu (Trans-New Guinea) numbers, Basque (Isolate) pronouns, Teop (Austronesian) syntax, and Rotuman (Austronesian) semantics. The team problem involved recognizing country names in Lao language (Tai-Kadai).

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 (Pama-Nyungan) morphology, Tundra Yukaghir (Yukhagir) semantics, Pirahã (Mura) phonology, Muna (Austronesian) 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 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 (Trans-New Guinea) morphology, Kiowa (Tanoan) morphophonology, Tangut (Tibeto-Burman) kinship, Engenni (Niger-Congo) syntax, and Gbaya (Niger-Congo). The team problem involved matching the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to their translations in Armenian.

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 (Uto-Aztecan) and Arammba (South-Central Papuan) numbers, morphology in the Besleney dialect of Kabardian (Abkhaz-Adyghe), Soundex, Wambaya (West Barkly) syntax and the rules of Somali (Afroasiatic) poetry. The team problem involved using extracts from a monolingual Northern Sotho (Bantu) dictionary to build a grammar and lexicon of the language.

IOL 14 will be held from July 25 to 29, 2016, at Mysore, India.

The different editions of IOL can be summarized on the following table:

Nbr	Year	Location	Dates	Countries	Participants	Webpage	Problems
1	2003	Borovets, Bulgaria		6	33	here	here
2	2004	Moskva, Russia	July 31 – Aug 2	7	43	here	here
3	2005	Leiden, The Netherlands		9	50		here
4	2006	Tartu, Estonia	Aug 1–6	9	51	here	here
5	2007	Sankt-Peterburg, Russia	July 31 – Aug 4	9	61	here	here
6	2008	Slantchev Bryag, Bulgaria	Aug 4–9	11	63	here	here
7	2009	Wrocław, Poland	July 26–31	17	86	here	here
8	2010	Stockholm, Sweden	July 19–24	18	99	here	here
9	2011	Pittsburgh, USA	July 24–30	19	102	here	here
10	2012	Ljubljana, Slovenia	July 29 – Aug 4	26	131	here	here
11	2013	Manchester, UK	July 22–26	26	138	here	here
12	2014	Beijing, China	July 21-25	28	152	here	here
13	2015	Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria	July 20-24	29	166	here	here
14	2016	Mysore, India	July 25-29	-	-	here	-

Individual medalists

Year	Location	Gold	Silver	Bronze
2003	Borovets, Bulgaria	Alexandra Petrova Boris Turovsky Eddin Najetović	Mirjam Plooij Maria Skhapa	Polina Oskolskaya Ivan Dobrev
2004	Moscow, Russia	Ivan Dobrev Alexander Piperski Ralitsa Markova	Maria Mamykina Todor Chervenkov Tsvetomila Mihaylova Tymon Słoczyński	Alexandra Zabelina Xenia Kuzmina Alexei Nazarov Margus Niitsoo Natalja Hartsenko Nikita Medyankin Sophia Oskolskaya
2005	Leiden, Netherlands	Ivan Dobrev	Eleonora Glazova	Nikita Medyankin Tsvetomila Mihaylova Alexander Piperski Ivaylo Grozdev
2006	Tartu, Estonia	Maria Kholodilova Ivaylo Dimitrov Pavel Sofroniev	Yordan Mehandzhiyski Eleonora Glazova Mihail Minkov Daniil Zorin Sergey Malyshev Alexander Daskalov	Yuliya Taran Nikita Medyankin Diana Aitai Paweł Świątkowski
2007	Saint Petersburg, Russia	Adam Hesterberg Łukasz Cegieła	Kira Kiranova Mihail Minkov Arseniy Vetushko-Kalevich Sander Pajusalu Teele Vaalma Angel Naydenov	Anna Shlomina Yordan Mehandzhiyski Elizaveta Rebrova Maria Kholodilova
2008	Slanchev Bryag, Bulgaria	Alexander Daskalov Hanzhi Zhu Milan Abel Lopuhaa	Anand Natarajan Maciej Janicki Morris Alper Dmitry Perevozchikov Łukasz Cegieła Andrey Nikulin Marcin Filar	Guy Tabachnick Joon Kyu Kang Radosław Burny Diana Sofronieva Jeffrey Lim Karol Konaszyński Yordan Mehandzhiyski Rebecca Jacobs Tatyana Polevaya Georgi Rangelov
2009	Wrocław, Poland	Diana Sofronieva Łukasz Cegieła	Vitaly Pavlenko Andrey Nikulin Yordan Mehandzhiyski Arturs Semenyuks Irene Tamm Łukasz Kalinowski Witold Małecki Aakanksha Sarda Rebecca Jacobs	Deyana Kamburova Szymon Musioł Elena Volkova Laura Adamson Alan Huang Ben Caller Tomasz Dobrzycki John Berman Jun Yeop Lee Sergei Bernstein Hye Jin Ryu
2010	Stockholm, Sweden	Vadim Tukh Andrey Nikulin Ben Sklaroff	Martin Camacho Tian-Yi Damien Jiang Daria Vasilyeva Allen Yuan Aleksejs Peguševs Łukasz Kalinowski Krzysztof Pawlak Daniel Rucki Maciej Dulęba	Mirjam Parve Miroslav Manolov Alexander Iriza Alan Chang Vitaly Pavlenko Artūrs Semeņuks Mona Teppor Jakob Park Diana Glazova Szymon Kanonowicz Roman Stasiński Ellen Sinot Younus Porteous Ana Pavlović Song Jeeun
2011	Pittsburgh, USA	Morris Alper Eva-Lotta Käsper Daria Vasilyeva Aleksey Kozlov	Wesley Jones Allen Yuan Jekaterina Malina Anton Sokolov Alexander Wade Victor Valov Duligur Ibeling Paul Lau	Min Kyu Kim Elena Rykunova Artūrs Semeņuks Hyun Park Rok Kaufman Vadim Tukh Daniel Mitropolsky Nik Moore Daniel Rucki Aaron Klein Dimitar Hristov Mihhail Afanasjev Ralf Ahi
2012	Ljubljana, Slovenia	Anton Sokolov Alexander Wade Vadim Tukh Anderson Wang Konrad Myszkowski Jonathan Hongsoon Kim Marin Ivanov Kristian Kostadinov	Darryl Wu Allan Sadun Eva-Lotta Käsper Tom White Daniel Rucki Aaron Klein Max Allmendinger Ilya Pogodaev Ivan Tadeu Ferreira Antunes Filho Rok Kaufman Hong Bum Choi Ji Wook Kim Sagar Sarda	Pedro Neves Lopes Erik Andersen Magdalena Dakeva Ants-Oskar Mäesalu Omri Faraggi Anna Sarukhanova Melanie Duncan Baichuan Li Anita Mudzhumdar Estere Šeinkmane Yash Sinha Amelia Shaye Lim Jin Edyta Gajdzik Mette-Triin Purde Erik Tamre Anne Ng Yin-Yi
2013	Manchester, UK	Alexander Wade Anton Sokolov Matyas Medek Gabriel Alves da Silva Diniz Michał Hadryś Iva Gumnishka Estere Šeinkmane	Omri Faraggi Yash Sinha Polina Pleshak Kuzma Smirnov Martyna Siejba Aaron Klein Airika Arrik Boryana Hadzhiyska Ivan Zverev Huisu Yun Jeffrey Ling Yulia Markova	Nilai Sarda Vesko Milev Marin Ivanov Ivan Lyutskanov Jacob Karlsson Lagerros Tom McCoy Martyna Judd Ants-Oskar Mäesalu Milena Velikova Jeong Yeon Choi Ekaterina Novikova Maciej Kucharski Daniel Lovsted Maximilian Schindler Jiyun Sung Sarah Tham Jan Bajer
2014	Beijing, China	Miłosz Mazurkiewicz-Dubieński Darryl Wu Daniel Lovsted Elysia Warner Anastasiia Dmitrieva Danila Shumskiy Dan Mirea	Ada Melentieva Catherine Wu Chen Tianlu Yan Huang Alexander Babiak Zhang Ming Lara Jerman Chen Run Keisuke Yamada Stanisław Wilczyński Hampus Lane Deven Lahoti Xue Dailin	Anindya Sharma Elena Chaparova Maciej Kocot Matyáš Medek Rajan Dalal Yoojin Jang Dmitrii Zelenskii Annika Kluge Emma Johansen Kevin Li Gleb Nikolaev James Bloxham James Abel Yulia Markova Šonita Koroļova Eliška Freibergerová Yang Heran Vitālijs Gusevs Glenn Ee Je Hong Simon Huang Maria Aristova
2015	Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria	James Wedgwood Samuel Ahmed James Bloxham Danail Penev Kevin Yang Liam McKnight Ada Melentyeva	Kevin M Li Ying Ming Poh Conor Stuart-Roe Valentin Dimov Daniil Vedeneev Stanisław Frejlak Jiu Xu Julian Gau Dan Mircea Mirea Katarzyna Kowalska Ralitza Dardjonova Anthony Bracey Ivan Oleksiyuk Teodora-Elena Solovan Jan Petr Ruowang Zhang Tina Vladimirova	Bálint Ugrin Nilai Sarda Piotr Gajdzica Zdravko Ivanov Anastasiia Alokhina Pim Spelier Naomi Solomons Anna Tatarenko Jaeyeong Yang Aalok Sathe Anthony Bruce Ma Diana Murzagaliyeva Luke Gardiner Nadezhda Dimitrova Radina Dobreva Emma McLean Irina Česnokova Isabelle Yen Matija Lovšin Naoki Nishiyama Samvida Sudheesh Venkatesh Timurs Davilovs

Team medals

Nbr	Year	Location	Team Gold	Team Silver	Team Bronze	Winning team in individual competition
1	2003	Borovets, Bulgaria	Netherlands	Russia-StPetersburg	Russia-Moscow	Netherlands
2	2004	Moskva, Russia	Russia-StPetersburg	Latvia	Bulgaria-1	Bulgaria-1
3	2005	Leiden, The Netherlands	Netherlands	Russia-Moscow	Russia-StPetersburg	Bulgaria-1
4	2006	Tartu, Estonia	Bulgaria-2	Netherlands	Poland-1	Bulgaria-1
5	2007	Sankt-Peterburg, Russia	USA-2 Moscow	Bulgaria-1 Bulgaria-2	None Awarded	Estonia
6	2008	Slantchev Bryag, Bulgaria	USA-2 Bulgaria-East	Netherlands USA-1	None Awarded	USA
7	2009	Wrocław, Poland	USA-Red	Korea-1	Russia-Moscow	Russia-Moscow
8	2010	Stockholm, Sweden	Latvia	Russia-Moscow	Poland-2	USA-Blue
9	2011	Pittsburgh, USA	USA-Red	Russia-StPetersburg	Russia-Moscow	USA-Red
10	2012	Ljubljana, Slovenia	USA-Blue	Netherlands	Poland-2	Russia-StPetersburg
11	2013	Manchester, UK	USA-Red	Russia-StPetersburg	Bulgaria-1 Romania	USA-Red
12	2014	Beijing, China	USA-Red	Russia-StPetersburg	Russia-Moscow	USA-Red
13	2015	Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria	UK-West	USA-Red	Poland-White Netherlands	USA-Red

Media coverage

• Newspaper article in The Age "It may be semantics, but linguistics can be a team event". July 27, 2012.

See also

• International Science Olympiad
• North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad
• United Kingdom Linguistics Olympiad

External links

• IOL official website
• Borovetz, 2003 – Official website
• Moscow, 2004 – Official website
• Leiden, 2005 – Official website
• Tartu, 2006 – Official website
• St. Petersburg, 2007 – Official website
• Slanchev Bryag, 2008 – Official website
• Wrocław, 2009 – Official website
• Stockholm, 2010 – Official website
• Pittsburgh, 2011 – Official website
• Ljubljana, 2012 – Official website
• Manchester, 2013 – Official website
• Beijing, 2014 – Official website
• Blagoevgrad, 2015 – Official website