Since the mid-1960s, problem-solving competitions in linguistics for secondary school students have been taking place, mainly in Russia, Bulgaria and other eastern European countries.
In recent years, the idea of the Linguistics Olympiads has spread to Western Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.
Winners of the regional competitions qualify for the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL), which has taken place annually since 2003.
As would be expected, one faces even more intriguing, compelling and creative problems at IOL from cracking how Barcodes are made to how Emojis are represented in Indonesian and from how to write poems in Somali’s Masafo meter to unlocking river based navigation systems of Sulawesi.
Once you have made it to Team India Saffron or Green, apart from the training sessions and the pre-departure camp, the best preparation possible is to attempt as many past problems as you can. Find past IOL questions as well as samples at ioling.org
To see how India has performed @IOL over the years, follow this link.