Edward Takes Gold in UK Linguistics Olympiad
Lower Sixth pupil Edward S achieved a Gold award in the first round of the 2023 UK Linguistics Olympiad Advanced Paper, placing him in the top 5% nationally. In addition, Louisa H and Ryan Y achieved Bronze awards.
14 Leysians sat the paper on 7 and 8 February 2023 and the two and a half hours of questions challenged them to solve problems in a range of languages: Albanian, Lardil, Meroitic, K’iche’ and Filomena Mata Totonac. The questions demanded a high level of inferential and deductive reasoning from the pupils as they were required to translate, transliterate, identify ideophones (words that evoke a sensory image as well as having a literal meaning) and deduce pronouns in the various languages. Edward has now qualified to enter Round Two of the competition, along with 90 others of the original 1686 contestants.
Mr Welby, Head of Classics, commented: “We had a record entry this year and the pupils further showed their commitment by applying themselves with great perseverance to what the organisers admitted was an unusually difficult paper this year. A Gold award is an exceptional achievement for Edward and I am delighted that so many other pupils were willing to take on such a tough challenge”