What isn't NACLO?
There are a few common misconceptions of linguistics olympiads and how to train for them:
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NACLO is all about memorizing languages. Although some problems you practice might be more well-known languages (like the Turkish example), harder problems often feature very obscure languages with fewer than 10,000 speakers (and many feature extinct languages with no speakers left!). Rest assured, most people, if not all, are solving problems with languages that are foreign to them.
There are over 7000 living languages in the world, and many more that are extinct, so we won't be running out of linguistics problems and obscure languages any time soon! -
NACLO is about knowing a bunch of formal linguistics. Unlike many other science olympiads, NACLO is unique in that it requires no prior knowledge in linguistics, and all problems are designed so that anyone would be able to solve them, regardless of how much training they have.
That said, this guide will be using formal linguistics terms only because we need a name to refer to (and also in case you want to explore them more on your free time!), but you don't have to go out of your way to remember every noun case. In fact, trying to remember linguistics terminology is often discouraged, because the grader might not know the formal terminology, and if you misremember then you can lose points even if your solution is correct.
Just remember the key rule: all problems are designed to be solved without any prior knowledge! -
NACLO is just for linguistics majors or language enthusiasts. While it's true that linguistics majors and language enthusiasts might have an advantage in some areas, the competition is open to anyone in middle or high school who is interested in solving puzzles and exploring new languages. In fact, many past NACLO winners have come from backgrounds completely unrelated to linguistics, such as mathematics or computer science.
NACLO is a great opportunity to challenge yourself and learn something new, regardless of your background, and you might even discover a new passion for linguistics or language learning along the way!