The International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) is one of 13 International Science Olympiads for secondary school students, and has been held annually since 2003. Each year, teams of young linguists from around the world gather and test their minds against the world’s toughest puzzles in language and linguistics. Poland was represented by 2 teams and won 4 medals! Young Polish secondary school students brought home two silver and two bronze medals.
IOL is a contest for students up to secondary school level where they compete in solving problems based on the scientific study of languages – linguistics. The contest does not involve knowing lots of languages. Participants compete in teams representing their countries. They qualify by winning a national contest, organised by an accredited national organisation. The IOL has certain criteria that need to be met in order for the national organisation to gain accreditation and send a delegation, but IOL is not itself responsible for these individual national contests. Non-accredited delegations may sometimes participate as guests (at the discretion of the hosts), paying full expenses.
Poland first competed in the IOL in 2004, and has competed in 19 olympiads. The last one took place on July 24-30 in the Isle of Man and our Polish representatives won 4 medals. On the 19th International Olympiad, Poland was represented by 2 teams – “Aristae” and “Reeds”:
The “Aristae” team:
Jan Karpiński – bronze medal
Aleksander Syrewicz
Józef Szymański – bronze medal
Jakub Ścierzyński – honourable mention
The “Reeds” team:
Kris Giglok – honourable mention
Bartłomiej Rozenberg – silver medal
Wojciech Szot – silver medal
Katarzyna Szwed – honourable mention