LINGUIST List 11.1061

Wed May 10 2000

Calls: Linguistic Olympics Website- submissions needed

Editor for this issue: Jody Huellmantel <jodylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Tom Payne, Linguistic Olympics Website - call for submissions

The Linguistic Olympics is an entertaining and educational activity
for secondary school students (ages 11 to 18). The students compete by
solving linguistic problems in real languages they have never
learned. This activity has been a regular part of educational life in
Russia for over 30 years, and has now been implemented three times in
Eugene, Oregon, USA, as an outreach of the University of Oregon
Department of Linguistics.

I would like to announce that the US Linguistic Olympics Website has
been updated. The site has a new look, and there are now over 25
problems geared to students who are native speakers of English. These
problems may be downloaded for personal or classroom use. I would
encourage all linguists to look at the site and try some of the
problems. Although they are geared to secondary school students, many
of them are challenging even to professional linguists. You may find
some of these useful in your classes.

Another reason I would like to ask linguistlist members to look at the
site is that I would like you to consider submitting a problem in a
language you know well. Our Russian colleagues have been most gracious
in allowing us to adapt problems from their archives. However, they
are also constantly in need of more problems for their on-going
Linguistic Olympics program. We would like to reciprocate by offering
them some original problems.

The Linguistic Olympics homepage is
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~tpayne/lingolym .
There is also an unlinked page that contains my report to the LSA on
the 1998 US Linguistic Olympics. It is at
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~tpayne/lingolym/LOreport.htm .
This document also gives guidelines for problem preparation.

Thank you very much for your help in making our discipline
known among secondary school students.

Tom Payne
Department of Linguistics
University of Oregon