FREELANG is a bilingual and free

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...

for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. Founded in 1997 by Beaumont, FREELANG is free to download (freeware) but is under copyright of the authors, and it is collaborative.

History

FREELANG Dictionary has its roots in the Dutch Dictionary Project, started in 1996 by Frits van Zanten and his friend

Tom van der Meijden Tom or TOM may refer to: * Tom (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name. Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Tom'' (1973 film), or ''The Bad Bunch'', a blaxploitation film * ''Tom'' (2002 film) ...

. The project initially consisted of electronic wordlists from Dutch to other languages, but with a team of volunteers around the world, they started to build websites to distribute the program and some word lists based on their language expertise. In August 1997, the French version was hosted under the name of FREELANG, headed by the French Dutch Dictionary Project lead, Beaumont. From 1998 to 2000, Frits and Tom progressively stepped out of the project. By the summer of 1998, the Dutch Dictionary Project team consisted of six members—Dario (Italy), Peter (Sweden), Vladimir (Russia), Tom (Norway), Gustaf (Denmark) and Beaumont (France)—who decided to continue with the venture. Vladimir, the Russian Dutch Dictionary Project lead, wrote new scripts to simplify the creation of new dictionaries. The Translation Help Service was created, offering free translations' courtesy of a growing team of volunteer translators. In October 2001, both the English and Dutch versions of the Dutch Dictionary Project were brought under FREELANG. The current FREELANG site is managed by Beaumont, based in

Bangkok, Thailand Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estim ...

since October 2002. In April 2003, the Spanish version was brought under FREELANG. In a major website restructuring in May 2009, English, French, German, Italian, Lithuanian, Russian, Spanish and Thai welcome pages were added, providing a portal to access the English, French and Spanish FREELANG sites.

Language platform

The FREELANG operates four separate language websites: English, Dutch, French and Spanish. Its fellow Dutch Dictionary Project versions include sites in

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

Esperanto Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

and Russian. At the height of the Dutch Dictionary Project, sites in Danish, German, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish,

Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese (; ; also known as pt-BR) is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of Portuguese language native to Brazil. It is spoken by almost all of the 203 million inhabitants of Brazil and widely across the Brazilian diaspora ...

and Swedish also existed.

Services

Dictionary

Various language modules make up the core of the FREELANG dictionary. Language modules may be accessed through either the on-line interface page or off-line FREELANG dictionary program. While the on-line interface page accommodates all platforms, the off-line dictionary program to access the modules is currently available only for Microsoft Windows. The software is available in English (en), French (fr), Dutch (nl) or Spanish (es).

Translations

FREELANG Translation Help Service provides some translation services for free, as long as is not too long and not for a commercial purpose. The service is accessed through a request form and a volunteer translator replies via e-mail.

References

External links

FREELANG Dictionary Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Freelang Dictionary Online dictionaries Dictionary software C++ software eo:La Vortaro