Over 6,000 British school pupils enter 2013 UK Linguistics Olympiad
Young people around the country are once again testing their mettle in the first round of the 2013
UK Linguistics Olympiad (UKLO) - http://www.uklo.org/.
UKLO is a competition for students who are still at secondary school which involves solving linguistic
data problems. Similar competitions happen in a number of other countries, though it’s only recently
that they’ve taken place in English-speaking countries.
The UKLO has enjoyed phenomenal growth since its launch three years ago. The number of entrants
doubled in 2011 and 2012. This year numbers have trebled. This means that in 2013 over 6,000
young people from 338 participating school across the country have entered the first round of the
Olympiad, with one school entering a staggering 475 pupils.
During the Olympiad, competitors answer questions about not only English but about a range of
languages, many of which they may never even have heard of. A typical question would ask the
entrant to analyse short sentences from an unfamiliar language, which could be a relatively wellknown language such as Japanese or something less familiar like the native American Papago. Having
worked out the meanings of simple sentences, contestants are then invited to translate other
sentences from English into the new target language.
Other challenges range from traditional code-breaking to devising a computational system for
spotting errors in translation. All tasks are designed to encourage types of thinking not required by
the National Curriculum.
A number of qualifying UK entrants will have the opportunity to represent their country in the UK
team at the International Linguistics Olympiad, held this year at the University of Manchester from
22nd to 27th July. The UK has an excellent track record at the international competition, bringing
home a total of eleven honours in just three years.
For further information or to arrange to speak to a representative of the UKLO committee, please
contact:
Tony Fisher:
Billy Clark
Vivienne Rogers :
Anthony.fisher@nottingham.ac.uk
b.clark@mdx.ac.uk
V.E.Rogers@swansea.ac.uk
0115 846 7181
07899 910528
EDITOR’S NOTES

The UK Olympiad is part of a consortium of English Language Computational Linguistics Olympiads
which developed out of the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (for USA and
Canada) in 2009.

UKLO is organised and run by a committee of academic linguists and teachers. Two rounds are held
each year: the first held in schools using materials provided by the committee, the second a
residential weekend for training and selecting the UK's national team of four to attend the
International Linguistics Olympiad (http://www.ioling.org).



Competitors represent a wide range of ages from 12 to 18, but must still be attending secondary
school or sixth-form college, with younger pupils being entered in a separate foundation level. Girls
and boys are represented roughly equally in the Olympiad.

The UK Linguistics Olympiad has a number of sponsors and supporters, including the following:
The Leverhulme Trust
The Independent Schools Modern Languages Association
The Department of Language and Linguistic Science, York University
University College School
Oxford University Press
The British Academy
The Linguistics Association of Great Britain
The British Association for Applied Linguistics
The Philological Society
Routes into Languages
The School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, Sheffield University
The School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences, Edinburgh University
Manchester Grammar School
Withington Girls School
Continuum Publishers
Cambridge University Press
Wiley-Blackwell Publishers

The patron of the UK Linguistics Olympiad is the Olympic Gold winning athlete Christine Ohuruogo
MBE. As well as winning three gold medals, including in the 2008 Olympic Games, Christine has a BA
in Linguistics from University College London.
For more information on the UK Linguistics Olympiad, please visit http://www.uklo.org or contact the Chair of
the Committee, Professor Richard Hudson – dick@ling.ucl.ac.uk