James McAllister (Coláiste Cholmcille).
A DONEGAL student has taken part in the All Ireland Linguistics Olympiad Finals, the search to find Ireland’s top young decoders at Dublin City University.
James McAllister, Coláiste Cholmcille Ballyshannon, was one of the country’s top 100 decipherers to tackle a series of brain-teasing challenges in little-known or endangered languages at the national finals in DCU.
The problems covered everything from interpreting Armenian railway maps, to translating sentences into the fictional Yoda Speak language made famous in the Star Wars movies.
The Olympiad, run by the Science Foundation Ireland-funded Centre for Next Generation Localisation (CNGL), challenges secondary school students to apply logic and reasoning skills to solve complex language puzzles in unfamiliar languages.
The contest aims to inspire the next generation of multilingual technology graduates, who possess a powerful blend of language competency and problem-solving expertise.
The best performers at the national finals in DCU will be selected to represent Ireland at the International Linguistics Olympiad in Manchester in July.
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