1. Many people think that a linguist is someone who speaks many languages and works as a language teacher or as an interpreter at the United Nations. In fact, these people are more accurately called "Polyglots".
2. While many linguists are polyglots, the focus of linguistics is about languages in general and not how many. To put it simply, linguistics is the scientific study of language. It aims to understand how the language gets processed in the mind and how language itself works. Linguists observe patterns within and across languages to try to understand how and why they are different and what makes them alike.
3. It comprises of sub-fields that cover: phonetics, phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax, writing systems, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, computational linguistics, psycholinguistics, pragmatics, applied linguistics, dialectology, comparative linguistics etc. check out what each of these are by ‘googling’ them up!

   Ok, we are done with the (dry?) universally present definitions of Linguistics.

4. Let’s see if you can solve this problem of defining Linguistics by visiting these links , take a break and surf through, try to get an idea of what Linguistics is:

   Web Links

   upenn.edu - Language Log

   arizona.edu - What's Linguistics and why study it?

   cambridgecoaching.com - Intro to branches of Linguistics

   thoughtco.com - What is a Linguist?

   linguisticsociety.org - What is Linguistics?

   sil.org - What is Linguistics?

   slate.com - Popular present ideas as a metaphor for linguistics

5. There are many more resources if you want to explore more about Linguistics in general, to explore that (not required for the Olympiad itself), go below the graded-past-problems-table phew! And find those resources! (P.S. there is a huge area of Linguistic(s) Humour, be sure to have lols, rofls while on the way to enlightenment)

1. If you could not register for PLO in time, you can also register yourself at the nearest center on the exam day, as a "walk-in" applicant, share registration details and pay the fees equivalent to the standard registration fees for that year, at the center itself.
2. Once the registrations get done, a tentative list of students and their roll numbers will be posted on the website itself, keep checking the website for further updates!

1. If you are enrolled in school, then the category for which you are eligible is determined by the grade in which you are studying. If you are studying in grade 6, 7, or 8, you are eligible to appear for the Junior contest. If you are studying in grade 9, 10, 11, or 12, you are eligible to appear for the Senior contest. However, if you have attended the Invitational Round Camp in any previous year, you can appear only in the Senior contest.
   • You must carry an official school photo ID that states your name, school name, and grade in which you are studying (or date of birth), and has a photograph of you.
2. If you are not enrolled in school, the category in which you are eligible to participate is determined by your age. Your category will be decided by the equivalent grade that you'd otherwise belong to.If you have attended the Invitational Round Camp in any previous year, you can appear only in the Senior contest.
   • You must carry a government issued photo ID (Aadhaar card, passport, etc.) that states your name, and date of birth, and has a photograph of you.
3. Contestants who have represented India at IOL 2024 are eligible for direct entry to the Invitational Round camp, and need not appear for the Round 1 contest.
4. Contestants who are not citizens of India are eligible to participate in the Round 1 contest provided they reside in India and are enrolled in a school in India.

PLO Round 1

1. Round 1 is a national level test which typically comprises of about 5-6 problems to be solved in 4 hrs.
2. These problems are all self-contained, i.e. unlike other competitions, all the data you need to crack the whole thing, is in the problem itself, thus, you are expected to sharpen logic and develop your own techniques to solve problems from languages all over the world and uncover new features, that you might not have thought of before! (In those 4 hrs itself).
3. Thus, it also touches on the aspect of making you aware of what linguistics as a field is and how interesting it can get. It gets one thinking on how to scientifically approach something like a language, which they have been in contact with, ‘forever’. After PLO, they are enabled to look for patterns around them in languages and how they function.
4. Don’t fret on preparation. If you still want to, feel free to explore the collection of past PLO problems (under the Resources tab) 😉. They are arranged by their levels of difficulty, so you can start with the light green problems and when you feel confident enough, move on to the darker shades.

PLO Round 2

1. Round 1 is typically a 7 to 10 day camp, for the top 25-30 seniors and 5-10 juniors selected in that year. It was hosted by Microsoft Research Lab, Bangalore till 2015, after which International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad took over.
2. At this camp, some of the top linguists and computational linguists work on introducing linguistics, in its full glory, covering areas like phonology, semantics, historical linguistics, computational linguistics etc. while also training the students for the Olympiad, where you can solve some cool olmypiad problems based on what you learn in the lectures.
3. In between this week of fun, contestants compete in a mid test and an end test which determine wether they are selected to participate in the IOL.