2006 International Linguistics Olympiad

Break out your vowel charts; the fourth annual International Linguistics Olympiad for high school/secondary students will be held in Tartu, Estonia, next week. The 2006 program runs from Tuesday, August 1st to Sunday, August 6th.

The International Linguistics Olympiad is a newer member of the International Science Olympiads (unofficial site). This year’s Linguistics Olympiad will include participants from Estonia (2006 host), the Netherlands (2005 host), Russia (2004 host), Bulgaria (2003 host), Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Serbia. I hope it gets even more international in the future. This year’s initial “expression of interest” was due by March 15, 2006, so start planning ahead for next year.

You can try out old competition problems written in English, Estonian, and Russian, and all of the 2003 problems and solutions in English, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, and Russian.

Here’s a sample problem (written by Ivan Derzhanski) with my shorter instructions (less shogi information):

In Japanese “ultimate chess” (taikyoku shougi 大局将棋), flat pieces with the names of various soldiers get promoted (flipped over to new names) when they reach the farthest eleven rows of the 36-row by 36-column game board. Fill in the Japanese and English-translation gaps.

Initial Value TO Promoted Value

1. [ ] ‘Running Stag’ TO honroku [ ' ' ]
2. [ ] [ ' ' ] TO toushou ‘Sword General’
3. gyuuhei ‘Ox Soldier’ TO [ ] [ ' ' ]
4. [ ] ‘Right General’ TO ugun [ ' ' ]
5. [ ] ‘Ox General’ TO hongyuu [ ' ' ]
6. kyuuhei ‘Bow Soldier’ TO [ ] ‘Bow General’
7. kishou ‘Wood General’ TO [ ] [ ' ' ]
8. dohei ‘Crossbow Soldier’ TO [ ] [ ' ' ]
9. [ ] [ ' ' ] TO [ ] ‘Dashing Horse’
10. [ ] ‘Left Chariot’ TO [ ] [ ' ' ]
11. [ ] ‘Horse Soldier’ TO souba [ ' ' ]
12. souyuu ‘Running Bear’ TO [ ] ‘Dashing Bear’
13. tonshou ‘Pig General’ TO honton [ ' ' ]
14. tesshou [ ' ' ] TO hakuzou ‘White Elephant’
15. [ ] [ ' ' ] TO sagun ‘Left Army’
16. usha [ ' ' ] TO utessha ‘Right Iron Chariot’
17. [ ] [ ' ' ] TO honrou ‘Dashing Wolf’
18. sekishou ‘Stone General’ TO [ ] ‘White Elephant’

Solution after the jump (with my added kanji/Chinese characters).

Solution

Patterns of Promotion

1, 12, 17
sou-X TO hon-X
‘Running X’ TO ‘Dashing X’
X: animal (‘stag,’ ‘bear,’ ‘wolf’)

5, 9, 13
X-shou TO hon-X
‘X General’ TO ‘Dashing X’
X: animal (‘ox,’ ‘horse,’ ‘pig’)

7, 14, 18
X-shou TO hakuzou
‘X General’ TO ‘White Elephant’
X: material (‘wood,’ ‘iron,’ ‘stone’)

4, 15
X-shou TO X-gun
‘X General’ TO ‘X Army’
X: side (‘right,’ ‘left’)

10, 16
X-sha TO X-tessha
‘X Chariot’ TO ‘X Iron Chariot’
X: side (‘left,’ ‘right’)

2, 6, 8
X-hei TO X-shou
‘X Soldier’ TO ‘X General’
X: weapon (‘sword,’ ‘bow,’ ‘crossbow’)

3, 11
X-hei TO sou-X
‘X Soldier’ TO ‘Running X’
X: animal (‘ox,’ ‘horse’)

Answers

1. [ souroku ] ‘Running Stag’ TO honroku [ 'Dashing Stag' ]

走鹿 TO 奔鹿

2. [ touhei ] [ 'Sword Soldier' ] TO toushou ‘Sword General’

刀兵 TO 刀将

3. gyuuhei ‘Ox Soldier’ TO [ sougyuu ] [ 'Running Ox' ]

牛兵 TO 走牛

4. [ ushou ] ‘Right General’ TO ugun [ 'Right Army' ]

右将 TO 右軍

5. [ gyuushou ] ‘Ox General’ TO hongyuu [ 'Dashing Ox' ]

牛将 TO 奔牛

6. kyuuhei ‘Bow Soldier’ TO [ kyuushou ] ‘Bow General’

弓兵 TO 弓将

7. kishou* ‘Wood General’ TO [ hakuzou ] [ 'White Elephant' ]

木将 TO 白象

*“Ki” should be “moku,” the Chinese-derived word part not the Japanese word (ki) that uses the same character.

8. dohei ‘Crossbow Soldier’ TO [ doshou ] [ 'Crossbow General' ]

弩兵 TO 弩将

9. [ bashou ] [ 'Horse General' ] TO [ honba ] ‘Dashing Horse’

馬将 TO 奔馬

10. [ sasha ] ‘Left Chariot’ TO [ satessha ] [ 'Left Iron Chariot' ]

左車 TO 左鉄車

11. [ bahei ] ‘Horse Soldier’ TO souba [ 'Running Horse' ]

馬兵 TO 走馬

12. souyuu ‘Running Bear’ TO [ hon'yuu ] ‘Dashing Bear’

走熊 TO 奔熊

13. tonshou ‘Pig General’ TO honton [ 'Dashing Pig' ]

豚将 TO 奔豚

14. tesshou [ 'Iron General' ] TO hakuzou ‘White Elephant’

鉄将 TO 白象

15. [ sashou ] [ 'Left General' ] TO sagun ‘Left Army’

左将 TO 左軍

16. usha [ 'Right Chariot' ] TO utessha ‘Right Iron Chariot’

右車 TO 右鉄車

17. [ sourou ] [ 'Running Wolf' ] TO honrou ‘Dashing Wolf’

走狼 TO 奔狼

18. sekishou ‘Stone General’ TO [ hakuzou ] ‘White Elephant’

石将 TO 白象

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Commentary

I missed two of them. I had 7 in the pattern of 4/15 instead of 14/18, and I had 9 in the pattern of 1/12/17 instead of 5/13. However, I did manage to change 3 from the pattern of 2/6/8 to the pattern of 11.

Note: In (12) [ hon'yuu ], the apostrophe is to show that it’s ho-n-yu-u (ホンユウ) not ho-nyu-u (ホニュウ). Japanese has no final consonants, but it does have a syllabic N (which gets followed by an apostrophe in romanization when in the middle of a word). My name, Kevin Sullivan, is Kev-in Sul-li-van, a total of five syllables. However, in Japanese it’s Ke-bi-n Sa-ri-ba-n (ケビン・サリバン), seven syllables.

Actually, my name is seven morae (or moras), to distinguish short vowels like yu from long vowels like yu-u (less obvious with the macron form: yū). In English both would be one syllable, but in Japanese there is a distinction. In Japanese words, sometimes the falling pitch in the word comes after the first part of a long vowel, and for emphasis and sometimes in songs you overenunciate long vowels as two parts. Plus, the syllabic hiragana and katakana writing systems clearly distinguish yu (ゆ, ユ) and yuu/yū (ゆう, ユー or sometimes ユウ).