United Kingdom Linguistics Olympiad

Problem-solving competitions in linguistics for secondary school students have been taking place around the world since the 1960s. In Russia, the Moscow and St Petersburg Linguistic Olympiads are credited with inspiring hundreds of young talented scholars to choose linguistics as an academic major and profession. Currently there are national contests within Europe, North and South America, Africa, Asia and Australia. There is also an International Linguistics Olympiad in which students from many countries compete, which began in 2003, and was first hosted by Bulgaria.

In 2009, two UK schools, the Manchester Grammar School and Downlands Community School, took part as guests in the Irish competition, and the winning team represented the UK at the International Olympiad. This triggered the foundation of a permanent committee for the UK Linguistics Olympiad, and the creation of a consortium of olympiads held in English-speaking countries, ELCLO, as a means for pooling resources with NACLO, AILO and OzCLO, the American, Irish and Australian Linguistics Olympiads respectively. The UKLO committee is chaired by Dick Hudson, with Neil Sheldon serving as vice-chair.

In 2010, 560 students from 28 schools entered, 223 at Foundation, and 337 at Advanced level. In 2011, 1165 entries were received from 49 schools, 349 at Foundation, and 816 at Advanced level. 2012 saw the introduction of the Intermediate level, with 1912 entries from 300 schools, 432 at Foundation, 498 at Intermediate and 982 at Advanced level. 2013 saw total entries number 2878, with 1069 at Foundation, 643 at Intermediate and 1166 at Advanced level. In 2015, a new, lowest entry level was introduced, called Breakthrough, with 96 entrants. By 2018, the numbers had increased to 220 in Breakthrough, 1042 at Foundation, 970 at Intermediate and 1650 at Advanced.

The Olympiad has sponsorship and support from various organisations including the British Academy,[3] The Linguistics Association of Great Britain, The British Association for Applied Linguistics, The Philological Society, Routes into Languages,[4] The School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, University of Sheffield and The School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh.

The Olympiad has received coverage in the first and second issues of Babel magazine,[5] as well as in the Francophonie journal[6] and Attain magazine.[7] Olympic athlete Christine Ohuruogu MBE is the patron of UKLO, having completed a Linguistics degree at University College London.[8]

The UK has sent a delegation to the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) every year since 2009, and has competed in 11 olympiads. They have sent 68 participants in 17 teams, selected through UKLO. In competition, teams from the UK have brought home 34 medals (13 gold, 8 silver and 13 bronze), 3 team trophies (1 gold and 2 bronze), 1 first-place team cup, 3 best solution prizes, and 12 honourable mentions. In addition, the UK has sent 5 Repeat Medalists and 3 Dream Teams to the Hall of Fame.[9] The UK Linguistics Olympiad was the host for the 2013 IOL, held at the Manchester Grammar School and chaired by Neil Sheldon. The competition in Manchester was featured on an edition of BBC Radio Four's Word of Mouth programme centring on language games.[10]

The competition is divided into two rounds. Round 1 is open to all secondary school pupils, while Round 2 is invitation only.

10 linguistic data problems are posed in each year's Round 1 papers, with the Breakthrough paper being 1-3, Foundation 2-5, Intermediate 4-7, and Advanced 6-10. The intention is that each problem is harder than the previous. At Breakthrough, Foundation and Intermediate levels, participants may enter either individually or as part of a group of 2-4 students, and timings and conditions can be decided by schools. At the Advanced level, the competition must take the format of an individual, two and a half hour test sat under controlled conditions.

Roughly 16 of the top scorers from the Advanced paper are invited to participate in Round 2, which takes the form of a residential training weekend at a host university,[11][12] followed by a three-hour test posing five more problems. Eight competitors in two teams from Round 2 are invited to participate in the International Linguistics Olympiad and represent the UK, with selection being based mostly on performance in the Round 2 paper, but past performances at IOL and Round 2 are taken into account, as is performance in the training throughout the weekend.

Since 2009, the UK has sent teams annually to the IOL.

Note: This team was entered into the IOL Hall of Fame as a "Dream Team" because all members of the team received a medal.[20]