UKLO for competitors

This page (which was rebuilt in May 2020 by one of our competitors, Robbie Bennett) is for school students who are competing, or want to compete, in the UK Linguistics Olympiad (UKLO).  If you want more information about how UKLO works in general, or about this year’s competition season (round 1, round 2 and IOL), visit the site for teachers here.

New February 2021: A discussion corner for competitors (courtesy of James Gravestock Snee): Talk about the UKLO in Discord! A community for chatting about puzzles, asking questions, preparing for competitions, and any other linguistics discussion. To join, click the link and create an account.

• A quick intro to language analysis
• What to do if you want to take part in the competition
• How to prepare for the competition
  • Round 1
  • Round 2
  • The international olympiad
• What to do if you’re interested in linguistics
  • Books
  • Blogs and websites
  • Videos
  • Online courses
  • Magazines
  • Apps
  • Competitions
  • Undergraduate study

What to do

If you haven’t yet taken part in UKLO, the first thing you need to do is find out whether your school is already registered with UKLO by checking the list here.

• If it is registered, then one of the teachers must be registered as our contact person. Try to find out who that teacher is by inquiring among teachers; but if that fails, ask UKLO.
• If your school is not registered, read this page.

How to prepare

To prepare for Round 1:

• Check out the training material on our website.
• Explore the collection of past problems:
  • Start with the easy ‘Breakthrough Workout’ practice problems at #4.
  • Then work through some of the problems used in past Olympiads at #2, which get harder as you go further down the list.
  • Use these problems to decide which level to enter at, then look at some of the past papers at that level which you’ll find at #3.
  • If you’re ambitious, enter for the Advanced level and have a look at the suggestions for preparing for Round 2 below!
  • If you want to be impressed, have a look at the problems created by past UKLO champions.
• If you want to get better, and have tried at least three past problems, and are willing to put in some regular practice, then consider signing up for some personal coaching. We offer this at any level and for any age – you don’t have to be aiming at the Advanced level. But you do need to commit to regular homework (at a frequency to be negotiated with your coach).

To prepare for Round 2:

If you’re selected for Round 2, check the Round 2 page for the current year for practical details about what to expect; and find out something about linguistics. Here are some suggestions:

• Work through at least some of the training material by Simi Hellsten (UKLO winner of Gold or Silver, 2017, 2018, 2019).
• Read and think about How to write an explanation, by Simi Hellsten
• Look up ‘Linguistics’ on Wikipedia and browse through some of the articles about the subject on a professional website such as that of the Linguistic Society of America.
• Try some of the word puzzles in Alex Bellos’s books:
  • The Language Lover’s Puzzle Book
  • So you think you’ve got problems (just one chapter on language)
• Watch some videos made by a past champion, Neema Kotonya, about how to solve some past IOL problems:
  1. IOL 2007 Problem 1 (Braille) 
  2. IOL 2007 Problem 2 (Movima)
  3. IOL 2004 Problem 3 (Latin)
• Consider asking for personal coaching, which we can fit into your schedule between now and Round 2.

To prepare for the International Linguistics Olympiad:

• The training material by Simi Hellsten (Gold Medal 2017, 2019; Silver Medal 2018)
• 20 tips by Ellie Warner (Gold Medal 2014) for the IOL
• a page for you about the linguistics you should know
• the Facebook page for the International Linguistics Olympiad (=IOL)
• and this one for Bulgaria 2015
• and this IOL blog (which includes an ‘Ask a linguist’ option)
• the classic book on solving mathematical problems: George Pólya’s How to Solve It (download it here; buy it here).

 And if you’re interested in linguistics …

• Books:
• • Larry Trask: Language: The Basics (for a quick, engaging read)
  • Larry Trask: Introducing Linguistics: A graphic guide (good reviews on Amazon)
  • William McGregor: Linguistics: an introduction. (a popular undergraduate textbook)
    
  • Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman: An Introduction to Language (a widely-used undergraduate textbook, with chapters on different areas of linguistics and exercises at the end which are easier than the Advanced level questions, but testing knowledge of language as opposed to thinking skills; plus answers at the back!)
  • Mark Baker: The Atoms of Language (aimed at non-specialists, with lots of talk of paradoxes and cracking codes, and introducing principles of linguistic analysis in the later chapters by comparing syntactic parameters to the periodic table).
  • Richard Hudson: Invitation to Linguistics (accessible, clear, and with a focus on linguistic puzzles)
  • David Crystal’s The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (a collection of fascinating facts about language that Crystal beautifully presents. Your school library may already have a copy; if not, ask them to get one!)
  • Personal recommendations from Babette Verhoeven, one of our main puzzle-writers:
    • David J. Peterson – The Art of Language Invention – Peterson is a “conlanger” – he constructs languages for film & TV – including Dothraki  & Valyrian for Game of Thrones. While I appreciate that many among us might be suspicious about conlangers, Peterson is a trained linguist and his book takes a newbie to linguistics through the basics of language study (phonology, lexis/semantics, morphology & syntax, diachronic change, etc.) in a very accessible (and dare I say it, fun) way.
    • Guy Deutscher’s popular linguistics books are great too:
      • Through the Looking Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages (the title is misleading – it is much more nuanced, based on recent linguistic relativity research presented in an accessible manner)
      • The Unfolding of Language: The Evolution of Mankind’s Greatest Invention (again, very accessible)
    • Daniel Everett – Language: The Cultural Tool (his most accessible and linguistically focused book, I think)
    • John McWhorter –
      • What Language Is: And What It Isn’t And What It Could Be (nice general introduction through looking at a wide range of different languages including slang)
      • The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language (again the title suggests a very strong anti-relativism stance, but the book is measured and sets out to tackle the more popular, non-expert myths about Eskimo’s different perception of snow because they have so many different words for it etc.)
• Blogs and websites:
  • Diversity Linguistics Comment – a blog about diversity and universals written by linguists for linguists.
  • Humans who read grammars, specially for and by young linguists.
  • Language Log, written by a team of leading researchers.
  • The official International Linguistics Olympiad blog for questions and answers about linguistics.
  • The Miam and Kilivila Collection, all about how languages classify objects, written by linguists at the University of Surrey for the general public.
  • Gretchen McCulloch’s lovely website
  • More from Babette Verhoeven:
    • My favourite blog and Youtube Channel is: The Ling Space which “is dedicated to bringing you varied, accessible, and up-to-date content and discussion about linguistics and other language topics.”It’s got great short videos on all sorts of linguistic topics, as well as some interviews with experts in their field. It’s run by linguists from McGill University. It does take a formalist approach mostly, but it tackles some challenging concepts in an accessible manner.
• Videos:
  • Watch a TED talk about linguistics such as:
    • Where did English come from?
    • How languages evolve
    • More recommendations from Babette Verhoeven:
      • John McWhorter has done a few.
      • Lera Boroditsky: how_language_shapes_the_way_we_think.
      • Patricia Kuhl: child language acquisition, which is a nice way into linguistics.
  • Linguistics podcast – a Youtube collection of talks about linguistics

• Online courses:
  • A very accessible ‘crash course’ in linguistics.
  • A MOOC. (In case you don’t know, a MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course, i.e. a collection of  teaching material, especially videoed lectures, which is freely available online. The ones listed below are all in English)
    • A three-lecture Introduction to Linguistics by the University of Birmingham.
    • The Virtual Linguistics Campus (a wide range of courses and individual online lectures at Marburg, Germany).  See the introductory video on Youtube, then register on the campus and sign up for the course Linguistics 101 – Fundamentals. This is a permanent MOOC so you can sign up at any point.
    • Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics (5 weeks at Leiden, The Netherlands)
    • Corpus Linguistics (i.e. the study of language using software to analyse large bodies of text)
    • Introduction to Natural Language Processing
  • Try reading the introductory linguistics course on the UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles) website – quite technical, but it may suit your taste.

• Magazines:

  • See if your school subscribes to Babel (a school magazine about language). If it does, read some past copies; if not, recommend Babel  to your language teacher or your librarian.
  • Unravelling magazine: A free online magazine about language and linguistics, written by students for students; started in Singapore in 2014.
  • U-Lingua: Another free online magazine about language and linguistics, written by students for students; started in UK 2020.

• Apps:

  • Download the Quizup app (the one by Plain Vanilla Games), and go to Topics > Science > Linguistics > Ranking. You can compete in a pub-quiz style competition about linguistics either nationally or internationally (choose the button at the bottom). Good luck!
• Competitions:
  • Write an essay for a prize in:
  • the Trinity College Cambridge essay competition
  • the Babel Magazine essay competition.
• And finally:
  • Consider doing a BA in linguistics at uni.