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Panini Linguistics Olympiad
HBCSE Stage-1 linguistics olympiad. Self-contained linguistic puzzles in unfamiliar languages — no prior linguistic knowledge needed. Solved by pattern recognition.
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Agglutinative MorphologyTurkish 'ev-ler-im-de' means 'in my houses'. What is the correct morpheme breakdown?
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PRIL — Quick Practice
FULL20 questions · 180 min
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Mock-score → expected rank → likely outcome. Use the mocks below to find your current band, then plan how many marks you need to climb.
National champions — IOL medalists
95–100% · Rank 1 – 20
IOL team prospects — Top 100
85–95% · Rank 20 – 100
Gold medal contenders
70–85% · Rank 100 – 500
National merit achievers
55–70% · Rank 500 – 2,000
Regional merit range
35–55% · Rank 2,000 – 5,000
Participation certificate range
0–35% · Rank 5,000+
AI-curated from historic cut-off patterns. Always verify with the latest official notification before making decisions.
The 23rd International Linguistics Olympiad will take place in Bucharest from July 26 to August 2, 2026. Four selected Indian students from PLO Round 2 will represent India at the event hosted by the University of Bucharest.
Round 1 results for PLO 2026 have been declared. Top participants are now eligible for the Invitational Camp and Round 2 at IIIT Hyderabad, which will determine India's team for IOL 2026 in Bucharest.
The International Linguistics Olympiad has announced the finalization of jury and volunteer selection for IOL 2026 Bucharest. The lists are available on the official IOL 2026 website.
🏅IOL 2026 begins (Bucharest, Romania)
16 days awaySun, 26 Jul, 2026
23rd International Linguistics Olympiad runs July 26 – August 2, 2026
IOL 2026 concludes
23 days awaySun, 2 Aug, 2026
Closing ceremony and results announced in Bucharest
PLO 2027 registration opens (expected)
130 days awayTue, 17 Nov, 2026
Typically November; watch ltrc.iiit.ac.in/plo for announcements
PLO 2027 Round 1 registration deadline (expected)
170 days awaySun, 27 Dec, 2026
Walk-in registration typically also available on exam day
🏅PLO 2027 Round 1 (expected)
175 days awayFri, 1 Jan, 2027
Usually held in late December/early January; 4-hour exam with 5-6 linguistics puzzles
PLO 2027 Invitational Camp (expected)
235 days awayTue, 2 Mar, 2027
Top Round 1 participants invited to IIIT Hyderabad for training and Round 2 selection
Click any topic to read study notes
Sound Inventories
Identifying the inventory of vowels and consonants in an unfamiliar language sample.
Phonological Alternations
Spotting rules where sounds change across forms (assimilation, deletion, vowel harmony).
Phonetic Transcription
Mapping IPA-like symbols to spoken forms using puzzle-given keys.
Stress and Tone
Predicting stress patterns or lexical tones from given paradigm data.
Affixation Patterns
Identifying prefixes, suffixes and infixes from word-translation pairs.
Agglutinative Morphology
Decomposing long words into stem + many morphemes (Turkish, Swahili-style).
Fusional and Templatic Morphology
Untangling overlapping case/number/gender markers; root-and-pattern (Semitic-style) morphology.
Case and Agreement
Working out case-marking and noun-verb agreement systems from examples.
Verb Paradigms
Filling in tense, aspect, mood, person and number cells in a conjugation table.
Kinship Systems
Decoding kin terms — paternal/maternal, generation, gender, marriage relations.
Word Order
Inferring SVO/SOV/VSO and modifier-order rules from translated sentences.
Alignment Systems
Distinguishing nominative-accusative vs ergative-absolutive marking from data.
Questions and Negation
Identifying how questions and negation are formed across sentences.
Embedded Clauses
Spotting how relative, complement and adverbial clauses are introduced and marked.
Sentence-Translation Matching
Matching unfamiliar sentences to English translations and explaining each pairing.
Bases (Decimal, Vigesimal, etc.)
Cracking number words built on bases other than 10 — base-20, base-12, mixed bases.
Numeral Composition Rules
Working out additive, multiplicative and subtractive numeral construction.
Large Numbers and Counting
Extending a numeral system to write/decode numbers beyond the given examples.
Alphabets and Abjads
Decoding alphabetic and consonantal scripts from glyph-to-sound mappings.
Abugidas and Syllabaries
Working out syllable-based scripts (Brahmic, Ethiopic) and inherent-vowel rules.
Logographic Scripts
Reasoning over character composition — radicals, semantic and phonetic components.
Transliteration Tasks
Converting between scripts using mapping tables from the puzzle.