India wins gold, 3 bronze medals at International Linguistics Olympiad in Romania

India's young linguists have added five distinctions to the country's record at the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) 2026 in Romania, including one gold medal, three bronze medals and an honorable mention.

Shrilakshmi Venkatraman secured the gold medal, while Aarav Anil Rao, Nishanth Shankar Lakshmanan and Advay Misra won bronze medals. Soham Amit Pednekar received an honorable mention, according to IIIT Hyderabad.

The IOL brought together school students from more than 40 countries and tested participants on unfamiliar languages rather than requiring prior formal training in linguistics.

Students were given language-based problems and had to identify grammatical structures, patterns and relationships using logic, reasoning and analytical skills.

India's participation in the competition dates back to 2009. The country's team is selected through the Panini Linguistics Olympiad (PLO), which functions as the national selection contest.

For the 2026 selection process, 525 students registered for the first round, while 338 appeared for the qualifying examination conducted in February.

Students who advanced to the next stage attended a 10-day residential training camp at IIIT Hyderabad from May 31 to June 10. The program included lectures, mentoring, problem-solving sessions, mock Olympiads and tests designed to prepare participants for the international competition.

The final team was chosen based on performance in the second-round test. The selected students subsequently underwent additional training before representing India in Romania.

The competition's problems are designed to test how effectively students can identify patterns and derive linguistic rules from limited information. Participants may be asked to analyze the structure or grammar of languages they have never encountered before.

IIIT Hyderabad has mentored the Panini Linguistics Olympiad since 2015. The institute said the analytical and pattern-recognition abilities developed through the program can also be applied to fields such as artificial intelligence, natural language processing and language technology.

India has won 37 medals at the International Linguistics Olympiad so far, according to the Panini Linguistics Olympiad. The tally includes six gold, nine silver and 22 bronze medals.