Langenscheidt () is a German

publishing company Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

that specializes in language

reference work A reference work is a document, such as a Academic publishing#Scholarly paper, paper, book or periodical literature, periodical (or their electronic publishing, electronic equivalents), to which one can refer for information. The information ...

s. In addition to publishing

monolingual Monoglottism ( Greek μόνος ''monos'', "alone, solitary", + γλῶττα , "tongue, language") or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism, is the condition of being able to speak only a single language, as opposed to multilingualism. ...

dictionaries 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 ...

, Langenscheidt also publishes

bilingual dictionaries A bilingual dictionary or translation dictionary is a specialized dictionary used to translate words or phrases from one language to another. Bilingual dictionaries can be ''unidirectional'', meaning that they list the meanings of words of one lan ...

and travel phrase-books. Langenscheidt has language-to-language dictionaries in many languages, including

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

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 ...

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

and Croatian, and in varying sizes, ranging from small travel pocket dictionaries to large desk sized ones.

History

The Langenscheidt Publishing Group was founded on 1 October 1856 by Gustav Langenscheidt, in response to other publishers' refusal to publish his self-study materials for learning

, which he subsequently published under the title „ Unterrichtsbriefe zur Erlernung der französischen Sprache“ ("Teaching letters for learning the French language"). These learning materials became very popular and were widely read so much so that even today, Langenscheidt can be considered the "Father of

distance education Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance; today, it usually involves online ...

". From 1867, Langenscheidt Publishing Group had its own

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in whi ...

. From 1869 Langenscheidt worked with Karl Sachs and Césaire Villatte on the ''Encyklopädisches französisch-deutsches und deutsch-französisches Wörterbuch'' ("Encyclopedic French-German and German-French dictionary") and published it in 1880. In 1874, Langenscheidt was awarded the title of professor. In 1891, in close collaboration with Eduard Muret and Daniel Sanders, he started working on the English equivalent, the ''Encyklopädisches englisch-deutsches und deutsch-englisches Wörterbuch'' ("Encyclopedic English-German and German-English dictionary"). Langenscheidt did not live to see its publication; his son Carl, his successor, published it in 1901. From before 1870 to 1970, Langenscheidt bilingual dictionaries were popular among language students and various

school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

s. In 2019, Langenscheidt was acquired by Klett, owner of the competing dictionary Pons.

Dictionary structure

The structure for most Langenscheidt dictionaries is the same. Most pocket dictionaries include around 55,000 references designed for tourists or people studying beginning or intermediate

foreign language A foreign language is a language that is not an official language of, nor typically spoken in, a specific country. Native speakers from that country usually need to acquire it through conscious learning, such as through language lessons at schoo ...

s, while larger desk sized interlanguage dictionaries include around 220,000 references. After the two languages' references conclude, grammatical assistance appears in the Appendix section, including helpful abbreviations, geographical regions, currency values, temperature conversions, and numerical values.

References

External links

Official Site (in English)German Site (in German, focus is on dictionaries)
{{Authority control Book publishing companies of Germany Dictionaries Publishing companies established in 1856 Reference publishers