Competition of linguists in distant China

IN flow weeks Schoolchildren From 28 countries Mira ate only sticks , evenings We talked between yourself on All kinds of languages , a during the day At 35 degrees heat solved Complex Tasks . IN Beijing The XII international Olympics By linguistics . Among seven gold medals in individual Ture - Two Russian . Specially For TRV-hobby reportage With Olympiads wrote member her jury Xenia Gilyarova , cand . Filol . sciences , senior teacher Higher School economy .

The International Linguistics Olympiad has been held since 2003. This competition is largely not like other international Olympiads, because there is no such subject at school - “linguistics”. In addition, at the linguistic Olympiad, native speakers of completely different, unlike languages ​​have to solve the tasks in languages ​​even more rare and amazing, not known to any of the participants, and as the geography of the Olympiad is worshiped, to compose such tasks (and therefore the competition) is increasingly difficult.

This year, the International Linguistics Olympiad took place in Beijing, at the University of Language and Culture, and gathered 152 schoolchildren from 28 countries. Every year, more and more countries, this time, the newcomers were Pakistan and Ukraine. And the logo of the Olympiad was a hieroglyph, similar in shape to the abbreviation IOL (International Olympiad in Linguistics) and meaning “language, thinking, knowledge”.

Main V man - liver

On an individual round, the participants needed to solve five problems in six hours devoted to different phenomena in the languages ​​of the world. Linguistic tasks do not require neither knowledge of foreign languages, nor any other special knowledge. To solve them, there is enough ability to reason logically. In the first task, the forms of verbs were presented And prick in the language of Benaben (Papua - New Guinea). For example, Kahalune - "We will beat you", Noho ' Inagihe - “Because we are two of it,” and others. Based on only 15 examples, it was necessary to understand Benaben's grammar and translate several phrases from his native language into this language. In the process of solution it turned out that, in fact, to beat the root of the verb It consists of just one letter, and everything else is prefixes and suffixes denoting the verb categories.

In the second task, the participants got acquainted with the Indian language of Kayov (Oklahoma, USA). Nouns in Kayova form a multiple and dual number in different ways, depending on what semantic class they relate: living creatures, fruits, instruments, etc. This is not the only thing that we had to understand to solve the problem, but we will not disclose all the secrets.

Once upon a time V Tangut Empire ( "Great state White And Host " ) two brother And Two Sisters . U Everyone were son And daughter . So the third task begins. Further, statements about family relationships between these people in the Tangut language are given. The task is to restore the family tree. There is no (even partial) translation - a puzzle for a real adult linguist. It is not for nothing that this task won the prize of decisive sympathy this year. It was set at the Beijing Olympics also for a reason: in the Tangut language they spoke in the territory of modern China at the beginning of the 2nd millennium AD

The fourth task was dedicated to the syntax of the Engenny language (Nigeria). Having analyzed short dialogs on Engenni, the participants had to translate control dialogs in both directions, as well as come up with the question of this answer. To do this, it was necessary to understand how important tones are for this language. Without them, it is impossible to distinguish an affirmative form from the negative, and the past time is from the future.

The last, fifth task-to the vocabulary of the language of the GBA (Central African Republic)-turned out to be the most difficult. In it, the words to GBA and their translations were given in a confused order, and the participants needed to establish the correct correspondences. In the course of the solution, it was clarified, for example, that in the culture of GBA, not the heart is responsible for feelings, as in the European picture of the world, but the liver. Therefore, happiness is literally translated as a “good liver”, and to envy how to “put in the liver”. Note that the liver has a good “reputation” in a number of other African languages, which can not be said about Russian ( cf. You u me In the liver You sit ).

At the International Linguistics Olympiad, each participant is given a second chance. Even if you did not do very well with the tasks of an individual tour, you can compete for medals in a team championship, where teams of four people solve only one, but a very complex and voluminous problem for four hours. This year, schoolchildren had to decipher the text of the World Human Rights Declaration in the Armenian language and build on its basis a small grammar of this language. Many teams coped with this task well, so it was not easy to determine the winners.

18 languages , 152 handwriting

In his free time from the problems, the time of the Olympiad expected a cultural program. They went on an excursion to the Great Chinese wall, visited the Chinese opera and the tea house Lao She. But the members of the international jury remained only, as they say, "put in the liver." Because for three days they were busy checking the work.

At the Linguistics Olympiad, the tasks are provided to participants in the language in which they will ask, usually their native language. On it, schoolchildren write their decisions. This year, the program committee at the request of the participants prepared options in 18 languages: English, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Spanish, Chinese, Latvian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Ukrainian, French, Czech, Swedish, Estonian and Japanese. 15 people worked in the jury, and they were all a little polyglot: each had to read solutions in at least 10 languages, and some in all 18. Traditionally, members of the jury from different countries help each other to make out difficult places, confused explanations and poor handwriting. For schoolchildren are the same everywhere: they do not think about those who will read their work.

As a rule, each task is evaluated by a group of two or three people, so all solutions are carefully read independently by several meticulous inspectors. Then a detailed discussion, and points for all tasks flock to the chairman of the jury. The final table is completely anonymous, so the jury members in the distribution of awards will voluntarily remain impartial. And finally, late at night comes the very exciting moment that replaces the jury and the great Chinese wall, and the Chinese opera, the disclosure of the names of the winners and winners. Of course, the results are kept in the strictest secret to the award ceremony.

The most Nice Part

The tasks of the individual tour this year were difficult. Nevertheless, there was a man who scored 84 points out of 100, Milos Mazurkevich-Dubensky from a small town of Zlotov in the north of Poland. He became the absolute winner of the individual championship. Only three points behind the Pole Darril Vu from the USA. Five more participants received gold medals. Among them, Danila Shumsky from Moscow and Anastasia Dmitrieva from St. Petersburg, as well as representatives of Canada, Great Britain and Romania. Silver awards went to schoolchildren from 8 countries (including from the debuting Ukraine), and representatives of 14 powers received bronze medals. Both Russian teams performed very successfully: the guys won two gold and three bronze medals and three commendable reviews none of the Russian participants were left without a reward. In the team round, the Russians were also on top, taking both silver and bronze at once. Gold went to the team from the USA.

The next, XIII International Linguistics Olympiad will be held in July 2015 in Bulgaria.

Site of the International Olympiad in Linguistics: www.ioling.org