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All Ireland Linguistics Olympiad – National final

I was very anxious about my results in the AILO for the first incomprehensible because of grammatical changes,
round, so to hear that I’d gotten through to the finals that Murrinhpatha, a language spoken by about 3,000 people
were to be held in DCU was amazing. I was very excited to in Australia’s Northern Territory, and Georgian, spoken in a
go and I was right to be. It was a fantastic experience, and former part of the Soviet Union known as Georgia.
I got to meet many people from many different schools all Afterwards, we had lunch for around an hour, and returned
around the country, and even a few students from Northern to begin the team competition. I was put on Team 28, with
Ireland (Tyrone, to be specific).
Eimear Quinn from Our Lady’s in Castleblayney, Seán Ó
I was introduced to the event when Ms. McElwaine organised Gaibhneáin from Coláiste and Eachréidh and Oisin Flynn-
the first round of the event in our school. I didn’t expect to Connolly, who was homeschooled. Overall, we placed
get into the second round, so it was a massive surprise to eighth out of thirty-two teams, and I’m quite happy with
hear that I got fifth place in Ireland. I ended up placing fifth that result. After that, the event was wrapped up by the
overall in the national final as well, but that was enough for president of DCU. Overall, I really enjoyed the event and
me to be the Junior Champion (under 16), AILO 2015, so I’m I highly recommend students reading this that they
quite pleased. I got 65.1, and the highest mark overall was participate in it next year.
75.7. The person who got that mark was Shmuel Barron of
Sutton Park, and I very much hope you all congratulate him Aleksandr Gusev 2S
for his achievement.
The event opened with a speech from the organisers of AILO,
and the man who designed the paper itself. The speakers
gave a history of the event and information about it, such as
the amount of students who had participated in it since its
introduction. AILO began in 2009, but linguistics olympiads
were held elsewhere in the world before then. It’s run by the
ADAPT centre, based in DCU, UCD, DIT and Trinity College.
Since it was introduced, over 7000 people have taken part.
The exam itself was two hours long, and was very stressful,
if I’m honest. It included questions about several languages,
including Evenki, a language spoken by only 28,000 people
in inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang in China, Finnish,
Phaasaa and Pháasaa (spelled with accents I can’t seem to
find on my Irish keyboard), two very similar but mutually
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