An independent guide to the world’s hardest language puzzles.
IOL Club is a community resource for grade 7-12 students worldwide who are curious about the International Linguistics Olympiad. We archive every past contest, annotate signature solutions, and run weekly walkthroughs on WhatsApp — not as the official IOL Board, but as a quiet space alongside it.
What the International Linguistics Olympiad actually is.
The International Linguistics Olympiad — IOL for short — is an annual contest for secondary-school students, founded in 2003 at the initiative of a small group of European linguistics olympiad organisers. The first contest took place in Borovets, Bulgaria, with six participating countries.
By 2025 the contest had grown to forty-two participating countries, with 227 contestants and 57 teams sitting the individual and team rounds in Taipei. The 23rd IOL convenes in Bucharest, 26 July – 2 August 2026.
IOL is governed by an IOL Board elected by member countries’ national olympiads. The Board administers contest rules, selects host cities, sets the international jury, and publishes the official problem packets on ioling.org.
Each contest consists of two rounds: an individual round (five problems, six hours) and a team round (one extended problem, three hours, teams of four). Problems test reasoning applied to language data — no prior linguistics coursework is assumed.
What IOL Club is — and just as important, what we aren’t.
IOL Club is an independent community guide. We archive past problems, annotate signature solutions, and walk new students through the path from a first sample problem to their national selection round.
We were started by a small group of former IOL competitors who now study linguistics, computer science, and cognitive science at university. The club operates a single WhatsApp group for grade 7-12 students worldwide, plus this open-web archive.
We are not the official IOL Board, not a national selection committee, not a paid coaching service, and not an admissions consultancy. We have no authority over contest rules, selection criteria, or medal awards — all of which live with the IOL Board at ioling.org.
Where this guide and the official site differ, ioling.org is authoritative. We treat ourselves as a community reading-room, not a registrar.
Archive past problems with attribution
Every problem links back to its original IOL packet. We annotate solving paths without altering the source text.
Run weekly walkthroughs
A small cohort meets weekly on WhatsApp to work a single problem together, mentor-guided, free of charge.
Point students to ioling.org
For regulations, registration, results, and contest schedule, we always defer to and link the official site.
Sell paid coaching
No paid tutoring, no exam packets, no admissions consulting. Membership is free; mentor time is volunteered.
Issue official medals or certificates
Only the IOL Board issues medals and only national olympiads run selection rounds. We do neither.
Claim to represent any nation
We do not speak for any participating country’s olympiad. We are a community guide, not a delegation.
This site is an independent IOL community club.
We are not affiliated with the official IOL Board. The official IOL website is ioling.org. For contest regulations, registration procedures, results, and the contest schedule, please consult the official site directly.
Our role is to archive past problems, annotate signature solutions, and walk through sample problems with new students. Where any information on this guide differs from ioling.org, ioling.org is authoritative.
We have a sister community: iolc.org.cn publishes the Chinese-language version of this guide. Both are independent community clubs; neither is the official IOL site.
Editorial standards — four pillars.
01Sources & attribution
Every contest fact links back to ioling.org. Problem texts are quoted under fair-use convention with attribution to the original-language contest packet. Statistics (contestant counts, host cities, participating countries) are verified against the official past-contests index before publication.
02Independence
This guide is editorially independent. We are not paid by, sponsored by, or affiliated with the IOL Board, any national selection, or any university. Any view expressed in our walkthroughs is the editorial team’s, not the contest organisers’.
03Translation policy
Where original problems exist only in non-English, we publish the English version released by IOL — and link to the original-language packet when available. We do not translate problems ourselves; for non-released languages we cite and link, never reproduce.
04Corrections & updates
Found an error? Scan the WhatsApp QR on /contact/ and send a note. Corrections are dated, attributed to the reporter (with permission), and re-verified against the source. The archive is reviewed end of each IOL season.
Three sites, three different purposes.
If you’re new to IOL and unsure where to start, the table below maps the three relevant sites: the official IOL Board site, our Chinese sister community, and this English community guide. They serve different audiences and different questions.
| Site | What it does | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| ioling.org Official IOL Board |
Authoritative source for contest regulations, registration procedures, host cities, official problem packets, and contest results. | Final word on rules · registration · medal lists · downloading official packets. |
| iolc.org.cn Sister community (Chinese) |
The Chinese-language version of this guide. Same independent-community-club model; same focus on archive + walkthroughs. | Chinese-speaking students · Mandarin walkthroughs · same archive in Chinese. |
| en.iolc.org.cn This site |
English-language community guide. Past problems with annotation, weekly walkthroughs on WhatsApp, contest archive. | English-speaking students grade 7-12 worldwide · informal preparation cohort · contest history reference. |
Who’s behind the walkthroughs.
Walkthroughs and annotations are written by current undergraduates and recent IOL participants. Each annotation is credited to its author within the relevant article, but mentor identities in the WhatsApp group are de-identified by default — we ask mentors for permission before naming them in public-facing materials, and the cohort itself only knows mentors by a chosen first name.
This is deliberate: many of our mentors are still in school themselves, and several attend institutions that have policies on extracurricular volunteering. The de-identification protects them while keeping the contribution real. Where a mentor consents to a byline, you’ll see their name on the annotation; otherwise the editorial credit is simply «IOL Club editorial».
If you would like to mentor, scan the WhatsApp QR on /contact/ and mention «mentor application». We accept applications year-round.