NACLO Linguistics Olympiad at Yale

Event Time: 
Sunday, October 30, 2016 - 2:00pm
Location: 
Dow Hall Room 215 See map
370 Temple Street
New Haven, CT 6511
Event Description: 

Are you a student with a knack for languages, logic and computational thinking? Would you like to try your hand at deciphering an ancient script or deducing the logical patterns of Swahili or Hawaiian? If so, then you should participate in NACLO!
What is NACLO? 
NACLO stands for the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad. It is a contest for high school and middle school students in which they are asked to solve linguistics problems drawn from a variety of languages. Only logic and reasoning skills are necessary; no prior knowledge of particular languages or linguistics is required. 

Sample NACLO Puzzle
Abma is an Austronesian language spoken in parts of the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu by around 8,000 people. Carefully study these Abma sentences, then answer the following questions. Note that there is no separate word for the or he in these Abma sentences.

Mwamni sileng. (He drinks water.)
Nutsu mwatbo mwamni sileng. (The child keeps drinking water.)
Mwerava Mabontare mwisib. (He pulls Mabontare down.)
Mabontare mwisib. (Mabontare goes down.)
Mweselkani tela mwesak. (He carries the axe up.)
Mwelebte sileng mwabma. (He brings water.)
Mabontare mworob mwesak. (Mabontare runs up.)
Sileng mworob. (The water runs.)
sesesrakan (teacher)

Use the above information to translate the following sentence:

The teacher carries the water down.

If you came up with Sesesrakan mweselkani sileng mwisib, this is the competition for you!
More sample questions for practice are available here.
How can I participate in NACLO? 
The first round of the competition will take place on Thursday, January 26, 2017. Students who perform well will be invited to take part in the second round. The top students in this round from across North America will participate in the International Linguistics Olympiad.
The Yale Department of Linguistics will be hosting 5 training sessions for students interested in NACLO where you can try your hand at some practice puzzles and develop skills and strategies for solving NACLO problems. 

Sunday October 9th, 2:00 4:00pm
Sunday October 30th, 2:00 4:00pm
Sunday November 13th, 2:00 4:00pm
Sunday December 4th, 2:00 4:00pm
Sunday January 22nd, 2:00 4:00pm

Please go here to register for the NACLO training sessions. Students can attend just one or all four training sessions and still be eligible to participate in the national competition in January.