Korea Linguistics Olympiad

Korea Linguistics Olympiad (KLO; Korean: 한국언어학올림피아드) is a national linguistics competition in South Korea. It is held annually, usually in November, and is a part of the team selection process for Republic of Korea to International Linguistics Olympiad. It is organized by KLO organizing committee ( Korean: 한국언어학올림피아드 조직위원회).

History
KLO started in 2010 as IOL National Representative Selection ( Korean: 국제언어학올림피아드 국가대표 선발전) by The Linguistics Society of Korea (LSK). Later it was organized by Language Research Institute (LRI) at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS) in 2015–2017, and, by HK Semiosis Research Center in 2018–2019. KLO started using its current name in 2017. Nowadays, KLO is independently organized by KLO organizing committee.

Eligibility
Eligibility of KLO is given to the South Korean residents or nationals satisfying either of the following conditions:


 * 1) is a student enrolled in a middle or high school in South Korea;
 * 2) has not advanced to the higher education (university or college) and is born in the year 18 years before the contest year or later (e.g. born in Jan 1st, 2002, or later, for KLO to be held in 2020).

Senior students at high school (Grade 12) are not eligible.

Format
KLO is an individual paper-based contest where contestants are given 2 hours to solve the problem set containing 8 to 10 problems. Working language is Korean. Some questions ask for short (closed) answers, while others require explanations.

Problems
Problem sets of KLO were released since 2017. They are also archived in the official website of KLO.