Welcome to the IOL

The IOL is one of 13 International Science Olympiads for secondary school students, and has been held annually since 2003. Each year, teams of young linguists from around the world gather and test their minds against the world’s toughest puzzles in language and linguistics.

No prior knowledge of linguistics or languages is required: even the hardest problems require only your logical ability, patient work, and willingness to think around corners. Give some of our past problems a try!

Ventspils 2021

The 18th IOL, hosted by Ventspils, Latvia, has successfully concluded on July 23rd, 2021. Due to the ongoing worldwide pandemic, contestants remotely competed in their countries. A total of 216 contestants of 54 teams representing 34 countries competed in IOL 2021, making it the biggest competition in the history of IOL, in terms of the number of contestants. You can find more information here.

Click here to find out the full list of the countries/regions that have participated in the IOL.