The UK Linguistics Olympiad (UKLO) national competition took place the week before half-term and everyone was welcome to attend any lunchtime throughout the week. The linguistics problem-solving skills you will develop are highly prized by many universities and employers, and come in handy for all sorts of subjects, such as Maths, Computing, and Languages!
This year 42 pupils took part, divided into 15 Teams and covering all three levels; Foundation, Intermediate, and Advanced.
The students relished the challenge of solving the problems in the limited amount of time available, coming up with creative solutions using their analytical, problem-solving and decoding skills to work out the rules of each language.
The language problems given were diverse, and included languages such as Jam Sai, Gilbertese, Swedish Runes, Permyak, Albanian, K’iche’, Filomeno Mata Totonac, Meroitic and Lardil. This allowed pupils to explore the different linguistic codes used and to broaden their own understanding of linguistics.
The competition is a platform for students to showcase their analytical and problem-solving skills drawing from their own language knowledge while exploring diverse languages from around the world. We look forward to next year’s competition and we are happy to welcome even more pupils to our weekly lunchtime Friday sessions.
