All Ireland Linguistics Olympiad 2011
Team Ireland at the International Linguistics Olympiad 2011
From 25-30 July (pictured above from left) Niamh Dhondt, Medbh Campbell, Declan Manning and Alec Fair are representing Ireland at the International Linguistics Olympiad at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
Follow Team Ireland's progress on our Facebook page
AILO 2011 Details
The second and final round of the Third All Ireland Linguistics Olympiad was held at DCU in Glasnevin, Dublin in March 2011. The individual winner was Niamh Dhondt, from Loreto School, Kilkenny. The team event was won by Methodist College, Belfast.
Altogether 42 schools from all around the country took part, with the top 100 students invited to the grand final in Dublin. In between the two rounds, and where scheduling permitted, schools were visited by tutors from the Centre for Next Generation Localisation (CNGL) for a training session.
The top four students in the indivual round will travel to the USA to represent Ireland at the International Linguistics Olympiad at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, in July 2011. Accompanying Niamh will be Declan Manning of Ballincollig Community School, Co Cork, and Medhbh Campbell and Alec Fair, both of Methodist College Belfast. The four competitors are aged 15, 16, 17 and 18. Interestingly, Declan's elder brother Cormac was on the Irish team for last year's ILO in Sweden.
View the AILO 2011 Photo Gallery on our Facebook page
What is it?
Since the mid-1960s, problem-solving competitions in linguistics for secondary school students have been taking place, mainly in Russia, Bulgaria and other eastern European countries. In more recent years the idea of linguistics olympiads has spread to western Europe, North America, Australia and Asia. Winners of these competitions qualify for the International Linguistics Olympiad, which has taken place annually since 2003.
A linguistics olympiad is a contest in which high-school students solve linguistic puzzles. In solving the problems, students learn about the diversity and consistency of language, while exercising logic skills. No prior knowledge of linguistics or second languages is necessary, but the competitions have proven very successful in attracting top students to study in the field of linguistics.
The All-Ireland Linguistics Olympiad is part of a consortium of English Language Linguistics Olympiads together with the North American (USA and Canada), Australian and UK olympiads. The consortium shares test materials so its member countries coordinate their test times.
Sounds great, how do I sign up?!!
It is unfortunately now too late to enter this year's competition, but if you are interested in taking part next year, whether you're a teacher or parent, email hsomers (AT) computing.dcu.ie with your school name, email address, and phone number, and we'll be sure to contact you in good time to be in next year's Olympiad.
If you're a student, you need to get a teacher in your school or a parent / guardian to contact us as a student has to be supervised during the first round.
What they say about the Linguistics Olympiad
"We really enjoyed the question in last year's competition based on the Korean language. We found it very interesting to figure out the basics of the language through our own logic. We never really expected that we would be able to do something like that" (Steven Carey and Athru Cheung, 5th year students)
"Question 1 of the AILO first round in 2010 was the first linguistics problem I had ever done. A year later the passion awakened in me is so great that I am currently looking into studying linguistics at university" (Imogen Grumley Traynor, Transition Year student)
"As a school we now have 2 after school linguistic clubs running. One for senior students with 15 participants and a new iniative for first year students with 8 students taking part. It's a really enjoyable activity for them. Many thanks for the organisation." (Teacher, St Kilians School, Dublin)
"It was an amazing trip, we met so many people from so many different countries. The actual competition was fun too, and it wasn't too competitive, so no matter how we thought we did, we were happy just to be there in the end. The whole olympiad experience is unique. I'm so glad I took part and I'd hope to do it again next year!" (Emma Carrigan, Irish team member at ILO 2010)
Sample problems
A great many questions from previous linguistics olympiads are available on the internet:
* Two easy problems, plus their answers: Chinese football, Japanese -te
* Another two easy problems
* A list of fun problems (ranging from easy to hard) from the UKLO website.
* The test booklet used in the 2009 AILO competition, and the answers and mark scheme.
* A large collection of problems, of different levels of difficulty, used in the North American Olympiad (NACLO)
* An even larger collection of problems, including those from the International Linguistics Olympiads. (Log in as 'guest', password 'guest'.) If you click 'browse all', you'll see a long list of test questions, mostly paired with their solutions. Not all are written in English, but a large number are.
Contact
If you would like to register your school, ask your teacher to look out for the information pack, or simply contact Harold Somers at hsomers (AT) computing.dcu.ie, and we will send you more details, probably next autumn.
Links
Funded by
