We would like to let you and your students know about the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO) of which one site will be hosted by the Department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia (UBC) for the fourth time on Thursday, January 26th, 2017.

NACLO is a pencil and paper contest in which students use analytical skills to solve puzzles in languages that they do not know. In the course of solving the puzzles, students learn something about the structure of human languages and how computers can process them.The contest introduces students to possible careers in linguistics, languages, and computer science.

Who can participate in NACLO? The target audience for NACLO is students in Grades 10 to 12. However, younger middle and high school students often enjoy the contest as well, and occasionally win. All students are eligible as long as they are under 20 years old, do not yet have a high school diploma, and are not enrolled in a degree program at a college or university. NACLO has no prerequisites and no registration fee.

What kinds of students are interested in NACLO? Typical NACLO participants enjoy puzzles and languages. Any students who enjoy the sample puzzles found hereare good candidates for NACLO. Good places to start looking for NACLO participants are math classes, language classes, computer classes, and gifted programs.

NACLO timeline:

1. Registration is now open. Register here.

2. The department of Linguistics at UBC will be hosting two training sessions. Practice session 1 on Thursday, January 12, 2017 from 4-6 pm, held in Allard Hall, room ALRD B101 and Practice session 2 on Wednesday, January 18, 2017 from 4-6pm, held in Buchanan Building B, room B303. Come meet linguists at UBC and solve some linguistic problem sets! You can practice some problem setsHERE.

3. The NACLO open round is on Thursday,January 26, 2017 from 8:45-12pm. Details can be found on the UBC NACLO website(

4. The top 10 Canadian students from the open round will participate in an invitational round on March 9, 2017.

5. SixCanadian students will be selected for training sessions via teleconference in April and May following the invitational round.

6. Fourstudents will be chosen to represent Canada at the International Linguistics Olympiadin Dublin, Ireland in 2017 (July 31st – August 4th)!

Logistics:

This year, for the fourth year, UBC will host a NACLO site for students to write the contest. If any student wants to enter the contest, all they must do is register themselves on the NACLO website and choose the UBC site to write the contest.

If you have any questions or comments or would like to see some additional sample problem sets, do not hesitate to contact Dr. Jozina Vander Klok or Dr. Hotze Rullmann. We can be reached at

Best regards,

Jozina Vander Klok & Hotze Rullmann

Department of Linguistics

University of British Columbia