Spelling bee champs
We have often discussed spelling bees and related phenomena on Language Log, e.g.:
"Spelling bees and character amnesia"
"Character amnesia and the emergence of digraphia"
"Of toads, modernization, and simplified characters"
Especially in the first post cited above, we have noticed the amazing domination of students of Indian descent in spelling bees. Even though we had a very lively, lengthy exchange on this subject, with many different hypotheses being put forward, no consensus was reached for why Indian students are so overwhelmingly successful in spelling bees.
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