International Linguistics Olympiad

The International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) is one of the newest in a group of twelve International Science Olympiads. The setup differs from other science olympiads, in that the program contains both individual and team contests. The 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. Like all 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).

The individual contest consists of 5 problems which must be solved in 6 hours. The problems cover the main fields of theoretical, mathematical and applied linguistics – phonetics, morphology, semantics, etc.

Since the 2nd IOL, the team contest has consisted of one extremely difficult and time-consuming problem. Teams, which generally consist of 4 students, are given 3–4 hours to solve this problem.

Location of IOLs

Nbr	Year	Location	Dates	Countries	Participants	Webpage
1	2003	Borovets, Bulgaria		6	33	here
2	2004	Moskva, Russia	July 31-Aug 2	7	43	here
3	2005	Leiden, The Netherlands		9	~52
4	2006	Tartu, Estonia	Aug 1-6	9	51	here
5	2007	Sankt-Peterburg, Russia	July 31-Aug 4	9	61	here
6	2008	Slantchev Bryag, Bulgaria	Aug 4-9	11	63	here
7	2009	Wrocław, Poland	July 26-31	17	86	here
8	2010	Stockholm, Sweden	July 19-24	18	99	here
9	2011	Pittsburgh, USA	July 24-30	19	102	here

Details of IOL problems

The first IOL in 2003 was held in Borovets, Bulgaria. 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. The problems (with solutions) are available in various languages online.

IOL 2 (2004) was held in Moscow, Russia. The five problems at the individual contest were in Kayapo, Latin, English, Lakhota and Chuvash. The team problem was in Armenian.

IOL 3 (2005) was held in Leiden, The Netherlands. The five problems at the individual contest were in Tzotzil, Lango, Mansi, Yoruba and Lithuanian. The team problem was in Figuig.

IOL 4 (2006) was held in Tartu, Estonia. 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. The problems (with solutions) are available in various languages online.

IOL 5 (2007) was held in St. Petersburg, Russia. 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. Results are shown on the official web site. The problems (with solutions) are available in various languages at the same site.

IOL 6 (2008) was held in Sunny Beach (Slantchev Bryag), Bulgaria. The five individual problems were in Micmac, Old Norse poetry (specificially, drottkvætt), Drehu and Cemuhî correspondences, Copainalá Zoque, and Inuktitut. The team problem was about correspondences between Mandarin and Cantonese using the fanqie system. The problems (with solutions) are available in various languages online.

IOL 7 (2009) was held in Wrocław, Poland, from July 26 to July 30. 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. The problems (with solutions) are available for download in various languages.

IOL 8 (2010) was held in Stockholm, Sweden, from 19 to 23 July. 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. The problems (with solutions) are available in various languages online.

IOL 9 (2011) was held in Pittsburgh, USA, from 25 to 30 July. The problems of the individual contest required reasoning about Faroese ortography, Menominee morphology, Vai syntax, Nahuatl semantics and the structure of the barcode language EAN-13. The team contest involved the rules and structure of Sanskrit poetry.

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 Alexander Piperski Tsvetomila Mihaylova 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

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-StPetersburg	Russia-Moscow	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

See also

• International Science Olympiad
• North American Computational 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