1. Is there a fee to participate in either the first and second round? No. 2. Do I have to attend the information session to participate? No, although attending it will help you learn more about the contest. 3. How long is the contest? The first round (February 5) is three hours long. 9AM-noon Pacific 10AM-1PM Mountain 9AM-noon Central 10AM-1PM Eastern 4. What happens if I do well? The students with the highest scores nationwide will be invited to the second round on March 11. The top students there will be considered for spaces on the US and Canadian team(s) to compete in ILO 2008. 5. How many problems will there be? You should expect 3-5 problems in the first round and 5-7 (harder) problems in the second round. 6. How do I register? Go to the NACLO 2008 web site (http://www.naclo.cs.cmu.edu) and register there. You can choose one of two options: - "online/high school" participation - you participate at your high school under the direction of a teacher. - "live/university" participation - you sign up for a local site where you will be given directions by a local professor. There is no difference between these two methods of participation. However, you are encouraged to sign up for a "live" site if one is available in your city. 7. I have never seen linguistics problems. Where can I read up on this subject? Check the NACLO 2008 site for a set of old problems with solutions. The web site also lists some additional reading materials if you want to learn more about linguistics. That material is, however, not required for the contest. See also item 11 for links to old problems. 8. So do I need to have a background in Linguistics, Computing, Foreign languages to participate and do well? Unlike olympiads in some other subjects, the linguistics olympiad is based on a subject not taught in most schools. Therefore, the problems are designed for students with no prior training in Linguistics, Computer Science, Programming, or Foreign Languages. 9. What sort of skills are needed to do well? You mostly need logical thinking. Some general knowledge is also assumed. It includes but is not limited to basic arithmetic (counting, multiplication and division, etc.). 10. What type of problems should I expect? What sort of "catches" and "pitfalls" should I avoid? It is important to keep in mind that all problems will contain all information needed to solve them. There are many problem types. The most common ones are: - translation problems. You are given a set of sentences in a foreign language and their translations into English (in order or out of order). Your task is to learn as much as you can from these translations and be able to translate a few more sentences in one direction or the other. Note that foreign language sentences may have a very different structure and grammar from English. For example, German sentences often end in verbs. In Japanese, one talks differently about their family and about someone else's family. Some languages have no articles or don't use a verb to translate forms of the English verb "to be". Others treat animate and inanimate objects differently. Be prepared to figure out these idiosyncrasies (unusual features) from the given texts. - number problems. You are given a set of sentences describing some basic facts in arithmetic (e.g., the equivalent to "six times four is twenty-four") and you have to figure out how to translate the different numbers and expressions. Some languages use bases other than ten in their arithmetic. Other languages use different words for the same number depending on the objects being counted, etc. - writing systems. You are asked to figure out how a particular writing system works and use it to write out some additional texts (e.g., some ancient inscription). Some languages are written right to left or top to bottom, others don't use vowels, etc. - calendar systems. You have to figure out what calendar was used by a particular civilization based on some sentences that refer to it. - formal problems. In this context "formal" means that you have to build a logical model of a language phenomenon. For example, a transformation rule may say "to convert an active voice sentence to passive voice, make the object of the former sentence the subject of the latter one, convert the verb to passive by using an appropriate form of the verb "to be" + the past participle of the verb, and add "by" before the word that was the subject of the former sentence". Following these rules would convert "Maya ate an apple" to "An apple was eaten by Maya". - phonological problems. You have to figure out the relationship between the sounds of a language and its writing system. - computational problems. You have to figure out a procedure to perform a particular linguistic task in a way that it can be carried out by a computer. - many other types, e.g., deciphering kinship systems, transcribing spoken dialogue, associating sentences with images, etc. 11. Where can I get old problems and solutions? Here are two sources. Many more problems are available on the Web if you search for "linguistics olympiad" or "ILO". http://www.naclo.cs.cmu.edu/practice.php http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~radev/namclo/practice.html http://webscript.princeton.edu/~ahesterb/ 12. How well did the US do last year? Quite well. Two US teams participated in ILO 2007 in Russia. One of the two tied for first place in the team contest. One US student, Adam Hesterberg, obtained the single highest score in the individual contest and won one of two "first diplomas". 13. How well did Canada do last year? Canada is participating for the first time this year. 14. If I make it to the US team, will I have to pay for the trip to the finals? We are working on getting funding for both US teams. At the very least, the first US team will be fully covered. As mentioned in item 1 above, participating in the first two rounds does not obligate you to pay anything.