About NACLO
NACLO was started in 2006 in order to promote Computational
Linguistics and Linguistics in general in North America. Its founders include Lori Levin (Carnegie Mellon
University, general chair), Dragomir Radev (University of Michigan, program chair), Tom Payne (University of
Oregon), James Pustejovsky (Brandeis University, sponsorship chair), and Tanya Korelsky (NSF).
History of Linguistic Challenges
The idea of holding academic challenges in linguistics stems from a long tradition of linguistics and mathematics
competitions, which began in Moscow in the 1960s. In 1984, Bulgaria began holding similar competitions, and contests
were first held in the United States at the University of Oregon starting in 1998. Bulgaria hosted the First
International Olympiad in Linguistics in Borovetz in September of 2003, and subsequent International Olympiads have
been held in Moscow, Russia in 2004, Leiden, The Netherlands in 2005, and in Tartu, Estonia in 2006. More recently,
universities in Estonia, Finland, Netherlands, the United States, and other countries have begun sponsoring such
outreach activities aimed at high school students. Participating as individuals and in national teams, students are
given challenging sets of language data and language puzzles to solve, with the chance to win prizes and
international recognition. Students learn about the richness, diversity and systematicity of language, while
exercising natural logic and reasoning skills. No prior knowledge of languages or linguistics is necessary, but the
competitions have proven very successful in attracting top students to study in the field of linguistics and
computational linguistics.
NACLO picks up on this long tradition, with a focus on computational thinking as it relates to solving linguistics
problems. In addition to the traditional linguistics problems, NACLO endeavors to introduce students to
computational problem solving as it relates specifically to natural language data.
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Practice Problems
Challenge yourself online with practice problems
Student Handbook
All you need to know about NACLO for students
Coordinator Handbook
All you need to know about NACLO for coordinators
NACLO Resources
Suggested reading, links, etc.
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