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Bonus 58: Linguistics puzzles for fun and olympiad glory
🕑 Added 2021-12-02 22:25:27 +0000 UTCThere are lots of extracurricular activities people do in high school, from sports to debating to math competitions. In the 1960s, a Russian linguistics undergraduate student named Alfred Zhurinsky had an idea: what if one of those things could be linguistics? Zhurinsky established the first linguistics olympiad in Moscow in 1965, and the idea gradually caught on -- the first International Linguistics Olympiad was held in 2003, and more countries have been joining on ever since.
In this bonus episode of Lingthusiasm, Lauren and Gretchen get enthusiastic about linguistics olympiads! These involve a series of fun linguistic puzzles, sort of like sudoku for linguistics. Since linguistics isn't commonly taught in high schools, the puzzles can't assume any prior linguistics knowledge, so they're either logic puzzles as applied to language or they teach you basic linguistics concepts in the preamble to the question, making them great for ling fans as well. Alas, we were not in high school recently enough to participate in any olympiads ourselves, so we also talk about how people can get involved if you're not a high school student, from helping to host a session at a local high school or university to just doing puzzles for fun and interest (they're available for free with answer keys on the olympiad websites, plus there was a recent book that came out compiling some of them). Plus: how Lauren has made a few olympiad puzzles herself!
Announcements:
It’s our 5 year anniversary! We’ve loved sharing the Lingthusiasm with you all these years, and appreciate all the support you've given us over that time. As we do every year for our anniversary celebrations, we’re asking you to share it too! Share your favourite episode or moment on social media (and don’t forget to tag us!), or just tell a friend who you think could use a little more linguistics in their life. Then go forth and enjoy the warm fuzzies of having spread the linguistic joy!
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Here are the links mentioned in this episode:
- International Linguistics Olympiad
- Wikipedia entry for International Linguistics Olympiad
- Wikipedia entry for the Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad
- The Language Lover's Puzzle Book by Alex Bellos
- Superlinguo's review of The Language Lover's Puzzle Book by Alex Bellos
- Mutual Intelligibility Substack
- Past International Linguistics Olympiad puzzles
You can listen to this episode on this page, via the Patreon RSS or download the mp3. A transcript of this episode is available as a Google Doc. Lingthusiasm is also on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com or chat to us on the Patreon page. Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic. Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.
To chat about this episode and other lingthusiastic topics with your fellow linguistics fans, join us on the Lingthusiasm Discord server.
Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production manager is Liz McCullough, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles
