International Linguistics Olympiad awaits Perse student
Tom (Upper Sixth) will have the chance to display his decoding skills at the highest level after being named in the UK team for the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL).
Along with seven other UK representatives, Tom will be heading to Taiwan in July to pit his wits against the top young linguists from around the world following a team selection camp at Cambridge’s Selwyn College.
He was one of just 12 students invited to the training camp, following his success in Round 2 of the UK Linguistics Olympiad (UKLO). Even reaching Round 2 was no mean feat with just the top 100 participants from the first round going through.
Tom said: “I was so happy to get the email to say I’d made the team. I’m looking forward to being able to travel somewhere new as I’ve never been outside of Europe before, so it will be very cool to experience something completely different.”
To give an idea of how tough the UKLO is, Tom admitted he only completed three-and-a-half of the five questions over the course of the four-hour Round 2 paper, in which competitors face puzzles related to translating obscure or ancient languages.
He said: “One of the questions was about whistling used by the Kickapoo native American tribe. The two things you could notice were high and low pitches and glottal stops, so I just looked to see if I could spot any patterns. The difficulty was really working out how the vowels in the language are included in the whistling, but usually when things become more obvious, there’s usually an awkward twist.
“Although I was surprised to make it to the selection camp, it was a fun experience because everyone there was really into linguistics. One of the aspects they look at is team skills because the IOL is partly a team competition.”
At the IOL, Tom will face an individual six-hour paper featuring five questions – “each year only two or three people finish all five” – as well as joining forces with his team in an in-depth task based around real-life linguistics fieldwork.
He added: “The UK are generally very successful in the International Olympiad, as Round 2 of the UKLO is considered to the third hardest linguistics competition after the IOL itself and the US national one. I’d expect everyone in the team to do well, so I’m hoping I have a decent chance of getting a medal.”