International Linguistic Olympiad

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The International Linguistic Olympiad (ILO) is one of the newest in the group of International Science Olympiads. The setup differs from other science olympiads, in that the program contains both individual and team contests.

This olympiad furthers the field of mathematical and theoretical 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.

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

ILO 5 (2007) was held in St. Petersburg, Russia. The five problems at the individual contest were in Braille, Movima (Bolivia), 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.