Langenscheidt

Langenscheidt is a privately held German publishing company, specialising in language resource literature. As well as producing monolingual dictionaries, Langenscheidt also produces bilingual dictionaries and travel phrase-books.

Langenscheidt has language-to-language dictionaries in many languages, including: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Greek, Ancient Greek, Latin, Arabic, Chinese and Croatian, and in varying sizes, ranging from small travel pocket dictionaries to large desk sized ones.

The Langenscheidt Publishing Group was founded on 1 October 1856 by Gustav Langenscheidt, in response to other publishers' refusal to publish self-study materials developed by him for learning French, 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 today Langenscheidt can be considered the "Father of distance education". From 1867 Langenscheidt Publishing Group had its own printing press.

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.