Post on 01-Apr-2015
The Linguistics Olympiad
Harold Somers & Cara Greene, CNGL, Dublin City University
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Linguistic Olympiads
History
Typical problems
AILO and ILO 2009
Collaboration among English-language Olympiads
Olympiads and school-level linguistics
AILO 2010, UKLO 2010, 8th ILO
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History of Linguistic Olympiads
Long tradition of linguistics and mathematics competitions, since 1960s in MoscowOther fields have Olympiads, notably sciences (physics, maths, chemistry, biology, philosophy, astronomy, geography), also arts etc.LOs in other Eastern European countries since 1980sFirst International Linguistics Olympiad Bulgaria 2003Moscow 2004, Leiden 2005, Tartu 2006, St Petersburg 2007, Black Sea (Bulgaria) 2008, Wrocław 2009Last ILO had competitors from 17 countries (see later)See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Linguistic_Olympiad
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Format
Individual and team problems
Problems require logical thinking and often involve (or reveal) some linguistic insights but …
… no formal knowledge of linguistics is assumed (even linguistic terminology is avoided) and …
… knowledge of any particular language should not be a particular advantage
(though language students are generally advantaged!)
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Typical problems
Quite varied, but always the information required for solving them is fully contained within the problem Translation problems
Set of phrases in foreign language + translations in EnglishFigure out vocabulary and/or grammar rules
Number problemsBasic arithmetic statements from which you have to figure out something about the counting system. Quite popular are languages with unusual systems, or where different words for the same number depend on the objects being counted.
Deciphering writing systems: very popular Questions about phonetics or phonetic systems, especially phonemics (though that terminology is not used)More “formal” problems include analysing and describing a language phenomenon in a set of "rules" that a computer could follow.
6HawaiianPuzzle by V. Belikov. English adaptation by Valentin Vydrin and Thomas E. Payne
Hawaiian is a Polynesian language, spoken fluently by about 2000 people.The following Hawaiian sentences, with their English translations, are about a girl named
Mele and a boy named Keone:1. He has seven elder brothers. Ehiku ona kaikuaana. 2. Mele has one brother. Ekahi o Mele kaikunane. 3. Keone has one younger brother. Ekahi o Keone kaikaina.4. Mele has no elder sisters. Aohe o Mele kaikuaana. 5. Keone has no sisters. Aohe o Keone kaikuahine. 6. I have one canoe. Ekahi ou waa.7. Mele has no younger sisters. Aohe o Mele kaikaina.
A: There are two possible English translations for the following Hawaiian sentence. What are they?
Aohe ou kaikuaana.B: Translate the following sentence into English and indicate who is speaking, Mele or
Keone:Aohe ou kaikuahine.
C. The following English sentences would be difficult to translate directly into Hawaiian. Explain why this is true.
Keone has one brother.Mele has one younger brother.
7JAPANESE –TE FORMS
Japanese verbs have a form ending in –te (or –de) which is a bit like the English –ing form of verbs, and is also used with kudasai to form a polite request, e.g. suwaru ‘sit down’ -> suwatte kudasai ‘please sit down’.
(a) From the following list of verb plain forms and their corresponding –te forms, can you say what are the “rules” for forming the –te form from the plain form?
(b) What would be the -te form of the following verbs?
kesu ‘shut’, matsu ‘wait’, nugu ‘take off’, tobu ‘jump’
(c) Can you say what the plain form of the following would be?
koide ‘row’, shimeshite ‘indicate’, kande ‘bite’
8NĬ XĬ HUĀN FOOTBALL MA?
Some explanation about characters and corresponding sounds is given …
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AILO 2009
Part of CNGL Outreach & Education
Format somewhat experimental
Collaborated with NACLO (and OzCLO) over problem selection
Sent out invitation letter in October to all schools in Ireland (c. 1200), targetting “Transition Year”, ≈ Y 11/12
Promised one or two training sessions
Responses from ~18 schools
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AILO 2009
Members of CNGL visited schools once or twice either side of Christmas
Worked through some practice problems
Talked in general about linguistics
Class sizes very variedWorst case ~60 kids, no teacher!
Typically though ~20 or fewer, usually with teacher
Teachers usually language teachers but not always
Second visit, groups often reduced to genuinely interested kids
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AILO 2009
Grand final in Dublin, April 2009
All participating schools allowed to bring 2 teams
We offered support for travel costs
Individual contest in morning, team contest in the afternoon (3 hrs each)
Despite bus strike, almost all schools turned up
~ 90 kids
Two schools from UK took part as guests (in own schools)
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ILO, Wrocław, PolandWe originally offered to take the winning team to ILO2/4 couldn’t make it so we took 2 best individuals23 teams from 17 countries
Each country allowed 2 teams
Individual and team events 3 hrs and 6 hrs resp.
All problems available in language of choiceVERY difficult problems!6 days – great social programme too (for the kids)
See http://www.math.uni.wroc.pl/~msliw/lingw/iol
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ILO, Wrocław, Poland
Individual winners were from Bulgaria and Poland
2 gold, 9 silver, 11 bronze
UK’s Ben Caller got a bronze (top 20)
Ireland’s Ruadhan Treacey got commended (top 50%)
Team comp won by USA (Korea 2nd, Moscow 3rd)
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Collaboration among English-speaking Olympiads
USA (incl. anglo Canada), Australia, Ireland, UK all organizing Olympiads
Agreed to collaborate in use of same problemsSetting and testing problems is a big overhead
Coordination in timing of rounds, and public release of used problems
NACLO, OzCLO and AILO all have a commitment to “computational” problems
Not a big deal
About 1/5 problems have a computational flavour
recent examples: spell checking, pronoun resolution, grammar writing
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Olympiads and school-level linguistics
Pupils and teachers VERY enthusiastic
Very common to find …closet linguists: pupils who know quite a lot already
serendipitous linguists: pupils who like this kind of thing, and didn’t know it was called linguistics
Teachers are not necessarily language teachers
Problems range over many aspects of linguistics though mainly “pure” rather than cross-disciplinary
No prior knowledge requiredthough problems offer a good vehicle to introduce concepts and (some limited) terminology
teachers often ask for recommendations for background reading
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AILO II, 1st UKLO , 8th ILO
We’re running it again in Ireland, but with some changesexpecting bigger participation – already have as many as last year, a month before registration deadline
will have a qualifying round in schools (like USA, Oz)
will offer training to individuals who achieve a certain standard
grand final again individual and team event, but with smaller numbers (elite)
Ireland team will be best 4 students
UKLO likewise will have a qualifying round taken in schools
best students will attend a training weekend from which UK team will be selected
8th ILO will be in Stockholm, end July 2010