Linguistics & UKLO
Linguistics & UKLO
Linguistics Olympiad (LO) problems are specific, and yet very varied, type of puzzle based around natural language(s). They primarily test linguistic reasoning, not prior knowledge in the field, making them almost purely logic puzzles, though with a very different flavour to Sudokus. My puzzles have appeared in The Guardian and Scientific American.
Some of mine that I think you might enjoy (in roughly increasing order of difficulty):
Adinkra Symbols (2024; cultural and visual thinking);
Tariana Detectives (2024, with Babette Verhoeven; gimmicky grammar);
Ngkolmpu Numerals (2021; for the mathematically inclined);
Cherokee Verbs (2025, with Ethan Chi; a very standard puzzle-type);
Kickapoo Whistle Speech (2025, with Evan Hochstein; my favourite type of puzzle).
Apart from these, my problems have appears in national Olympiads in the UK and Sweden (where I am a problem committee member), as well as Australia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, and USA. (And possibly elsewhere! I forget.) I've also acted as an "external collaborator" for the Asia-Pacific LO.
I wear a lot of hats within UKLO, but the main ones are Vice-Chair and Leader of Test Development. This means that I spent a lot of time writing and testing linguistics problems (see above), but I also coach the team for the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL). Since taking over this role in 2023, the UK has won the award for the Highest Average Score twice (2024, 2025), and won 12 medals (6G 4S 2B).
If you're interested in competing, get your school to register! If you're interested in helping out in other ways, email me! We always need more markers and problem authors, and are happy to help develop any ideas you may have into workable problems.
I'm not a linguist by training, but spend a lot of my time thinking about linguistics and language. Particular interests include linguistics education at a high-school level; how to incorporate Linguistics-As-A-Science and Knowledge-About-Language into the curriculum; and linguistic reasoning, both in humans and large language models.
Email: simeon.[lastname]@glasgow.ac.uk