Maria Litvin has brought a prestigious new linguistics competition to Phillips Academy. The North American Computation Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO) competition, in its second year in the United States, requires first-round contestants to solve three to five linguistic logic problems in three hours. U.S. finalists will attend the International Linguistic Olympiad (ILO) in Bulgaria. The first round will take place on Friday, February 5 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Litvin, Instructor in Math and Computer Science, first discovered the NACLO competition when the North American team took first place at last year’s ILO. According to Litvin, Phillips Academy students beat two of the four members of last year’s winning U.S. linguistics team at an earlier math and science competition. The test requires no prior knowledge of any language. Each problem can be solved through logic and reason. A problem might require the contestant to translate a phrase from English to a foreign language using short translated passages as reference. According to the competition’s website, problem types include translation, numbers, writing systems, calendar systems, formal, phonological and computational, among others. “I don’t have any linguistic background,” Litvin said. “I just really think it would be fun and I see the students have a lot of talent and they are ready to try new things.” Though the contest relates to language study, the test does not target any “type” of student or strength. “Well, that’s the most beautiful thing, we don’t know [the type of student for the test]. That’s why we placed [advertisements] across campus because it could be anyone. It could be a student who’s genius at languages, or a student who’s good at computers, or just good at logic,” said Litvin. Twenty students attended the first practice for the competition held on Friday, January 18. Practice sessions will continue until the actual date of the test. Any student is welcome to join until registration ends on February 5, the date of the competition. After the first and second rounds of the competition, the top students will attend a training camp for the NACLO competition. After training, the North American Computation Linguistics team will be finalized and will compete in the finals in Bulgaria. The NACLO was inspired by linguistic and mathematical competitions held in Moscow during the 1960’s. The contests were first held in the United States at the University of Oregon in 1998.
