Are you a high school student with a knack for languages, logic and computational thinking? Would you like to try your hand at deciphering an ancient script or deducing the logical patterns of Swahili or Hawaiian?
NACLO stands for the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad. It is a contest for high-school (and younger) students to solve linguistics problems drawn from a variety of languages. Only logic and reasoning skills are necessary; no prior knowledge of particular languages or of linguistics is required.
This year the Ohio State University will be a local site. The open round of the contest will take place on Thursday, January 31, 2013. Well-performing students will be invited to a second round to be held on March 19. The top students in the invitational round will have a chance to participate in the International Linguistics Olympiad in the summer. More information about NACLO can be found at the national NACLO site.
Information Session
There will be an information session with some time to try out practice problems on Thursday, January 10, from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m. The location of the session is Jennings 136. Please email us at naclo@ling.osu.edu if you plan to attend the session.
Registration
Participation is free. Students who are interested in can register at the NACLO registration site. Register early to be assured of a seat. Registrations will still be accepted, provided that space is available, up until Wednesday, January 30.
Where is the Ohio State site for the contest?
The tentative location of the OSU site for the contest is Ohio Union (1739 N High St, Columbus, OH 43210) in the Senate Chamber (Room 2145) on the second floor. Please check back for the final location.
When should I arrive?
The contest starts at 10 a.m. sharp and goes until 1 p.m. on Thursday, January 31. Please arrive early, at about 9:30 a.m., as we will go over the rules prior to the start of the contest. After the contest, there will be refreshments and a discussion of opportunities for studying linguistics and computational linguistics at Ohio State.
Sample question
Abma is an Austronesian language spoken in parts of the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu by around 8,000 people. Carefully study these Abma sentences, then answer the following questions. Note that there is no separate word for the or he in these Abma sentences.
- Mwamni sileng. (He drinks water.)
- Nutsu mwatbo mwamni sileng. (The child keeps drinking water.)
- Mwerava Mabontare mwisib. (He pulls Mabontare down.)
- Mabontare mwisib. (Mabontare goes down.)
- Mweselkani tela mwesak. (He carries the axe up.)
- Mwelebte sileng mwabma. (He brings water.)
- Mabontare mworob mwesak. (Mabontare runs up.)
- Sileng mworob. (The water runs.)
- sesesrakan (teacher)
Use the above information to translate the following sentence:
- The teacher carries the water down.
If you came up with Sesesrakan mweselkani sileng mwisib, this is the competition for you!
More sample questions for practice are available here.
Local organizers
Please contact us if you have questions at: naclo@ling.osu.edu
Ohio State's hosting activities are sponsored by the Department of Linguistics and the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, the Student Linguistic Association and the Ohio State chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery Committee on Women.
