Dashboard · Exams · PRIL
Panini Linguistics Olympiad
HBCSE Stage-1 linguistics olympiad. Self-contained linguistic puzzles in unfamiliar languages — no prior linguistic knowledge needed. Solved by pattern recognition.
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Source: official exam authority notification · refreshed weekly. How this works →
Free PRIL preparation on Shishya
Take expert-curated mocks, practise previous year papers, and Ask Shishya when you're stuck — verified by students who cleared the same path. All free, no credit card. Sign in with Google to begin.
Sign in to start →Start with a diagnostic
10 questions across the syllabus to see where you stand.
We are sourcing PYQs from the official notification PDFs. Coming soon.
Take any mock in your preferred language — use the language picker inside the mock to switch (Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, and 15 more).
PRIL — Quick Practice
FULL20 questions · 180 min
Start mock →Take a mock to see where you stand on the leaderboard.
What can I get from PRIL?
Mock-score → expected rank → likely outcome. Use the mocks below to find your current band, then plan how many marks you need to climb.
Top 10 — Elite tier
96–100% · Rank 1 – 10
Top 30 — Team selection zone
90–96% · Rank 10 – 30
Top 100 — IOL training camp
82–90% · Rank 30 – 100
Top 500 — National distinction
70–82% · Rank 100 – 500
National merit tier
55–70% · Rank 500 – 2,000
Regional merit range
35–55% · Rank 2,000 – 5,000
Participation level
0–35% · Rank 5,000+
AI-curated from historic cut-off patterns. Always verify with the latest official notification before making decisions.
The Indian Linguistic Olympiad has announced a one-week extension for PRIL registrations following requests from schools and students. The revised deadline allows more participants to register for this year's competition.
Source →The organizing committee has published a set of practice problems on the official portal to help students familiarize themselves with the PRIL problem format. These cover phonology, syntax, and writing system puzzles typical of linguistic olympiads.
Source →This cycle has seen significant growth in registrations from schools in Assam, Manipur, and Nagaland. The organizing team attributes this to increased outreach efforts and the linguistic diversity of these regions.
Source →PRIL Round 2 finalists will undergo additional training sessions before final selection for India's team to the International Linguistics Olympiad. Selection will be based on Round 2 performance and subsequent evaluation rounds.
Source →PRIL registration deadline
passedMon, 4 May, 2026
Last date for online registration and school nominations
🏅Round 1 (School level) exam date
5 days awayMon, 1 Jun, 2026
Written examination conducted at registered schools across India
Round 1 results announcement
33 days awayMon, 29 Jun, 2026
Qualifiers for Round 2 will be notified via email and official website
🏅Round 2 (National level) exam date
75 days awayMon, 10 Aug, 2026
Advanced problems for top performers from Round 1, held at regional centers
Round 2 results and national rankings
96 days awayMon, 31 Aug, 2026
Final rankings published; top performers identified for further training
IOL training camp begins
124 days awayMon, 28 Sept, 2026
Intensive preparation for selected students ahead of International Linguistics Olympiad
Click any topic to read study notes
Sound Inventories
Identifying the inventory of vowels and consonants in an unfamiliar language sample.
Phonological Alternations
Spotting rules where sounds change across forms (assimilation, deletion, vowel harmony).
Phonetic Transcription
Mapping IPA-like symbols to spoken forms using puzzle-given keys.
Stress and Tone
Predicting stress patterns or lexical tones from given paradigm data.
Affixation Patterns
Identifying prefixes, suffixes and infixes from word-translation pairs.
Agglutinative Morphology
Decomposing long words into stem + many morphemes (Turkish, Swahili-style).
Fusional and Templatic Morphology
Untangling overlapping case/number/gender markers; root-and-pattern (Semitic-style) morphology.
Case and Agreement
Working out case-marking and noun-verb agreement systems from examples.
Verb Paradigms
Filling in tense, aspect, mood, person and number cells in a conjugation table.
Kinship Systems
Decoding kin terms — paternal/maternal, generation, gender, marriage relations.
Word Order
Inferring SVO/SOV/VSO and modifier-order rules from translated sentences.
Alignment Systems
Distinguishing nominative-accusative vs ergative-absolutive marking from data.
Questions and Negation
Identifying how questions and negation are formed across sentences.
Embedded Clauses
Spotting how relative, complement and adverbial clauses are introduced and marked.
Sentence-Translation Matching
Matching unfamiliar sentences to English translations and explaining each pairing.
Bases (Decimal, Vigesimal, etc.)
Cracking number words built on bases other than 10 — base-20, base-12, mixed bases.
Numeral Composition Rules
Working out additive, multiplicative and subtractive numeral construction.
Large Numbers and Counting
Extending a numeral system to write/decode numbers beyond the given examples.
Alphabets and Abjads
Decoding alphabetic and consonantal scripts from glyph-to-sound mappings.
Abugidas and Syllabaries
Working out syllable-based scripts (Brahmic, Ethiopic) and inherent-vowel rules.
Logographic Scripts
Reasoning over character composition — radicals, semantic and phonetic components.
Transliteration Tasks
Converting between scripts using mapping tables from the puzzle.
Final team selection for IOL
152 days awayMon, 26 Oct, 2026
India's team for International Linguistics Olympiad finalized after training evaluations