LEO (website)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| LEO GmbH | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Type | GmbH |
| Founded | 3. April 2006 |
| Headquarters |  Sauerlach, Germany |
| Revenue | ? |
| Employees | 16 |
| Website | http://www.leo.org |
| Type of site | Online dictionaries |
| Advertising | Google AdSense & Flash banner |
| Registration | optional |
| Available in | English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese |
| Launched | June 5, 1994 |
| Current status | active |
LEO (meaning link everything online) is an internet site initiated by the computer science department of the Technische Universität München in Munich, Germany and now run by a private company after a spin out. It is well known for its free online dictionaries.
Contents |
[edit] Dictionaries
The website hosts five free online dictionaries and fora for additional language queries. The dictionaries are characterized by providing translations in forms of hyperlinks to further dictionary queries, thereby facilitating back translations. The dictionaries are partly extended and corrected by large vocabulary donations of individuals or companies, partly through suggestions and discussions on the respective LEO language fora.
Since April 3, 2006 the dictionaries are run by the limited liability company Leo GmbH, formed from the members of the old Leo team.
[edit] English-German
The English-German dictionary run by Leo since 1995 contains more than 460,000 entries and receives an average of 10 million queries per weekday.[1]
[edit] French-German
In 2004, a French-German dictionary was added to the site's services and has now more than 165,000 entries. This gets about 1.5 million queries a weekday.[2]
[edit] Spanish-German
A Spanish-German dictionary with currently more than 110,000 entries was introduced on April 3, 2006. It gets about 750,000 queries each weekday.[3]
[edit] Italian-German
An Italian-German was started on Apr 3rd 2008. At the time of the public launch, the dictionary contained about 85,000 entries and received 77,000 queries on the first day. [4]
[edit] Chinese-German
The Chinese-German dictionary was started on the same date as the Italian-German dictionary, Apr 3rd 2008. Queries can be entered by using Pinyin, or traditional or simplified characters. [5]The dictionary started with about 65,000 entries and received about 93,000 queries on the first day. [6]
[edit] History
The site grew out of a network of FTP software and archived data which was put together by students at Munich University of Technology and Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich even before HTML and HTTP existed. The original aim was to create a single, huge archive by linking up archives run by the different research groups (hence its name link everything online). The archive was sorted thematically and the different sections organised and kept up to date by archivists.
When the World Wide Web came into common use, HTTP access to the archive was at first added as an alternative to FTP. Students developed various services in their free time, in particular the dictionaries. Some services have been dropped in the course of the spin out, such as the software archive.
[edit] Name
The name of the site is actually a backronym from the name Leo: the Bavarian coat of arms features a lion. Originally, the service was named ISAR (a backronym for Isar river, on the banks of which Munich is situated; here, ISAR is for Informationssysteme und Archiv München), but it had to be renamed as there was another firm of the same name.
[edit] References
- Some of this article was translated from the German language version of this page.
- ^ English-German Query Statistics of dict.leo.org
- ^ French-German Query Statistics of dict.leo.org
- ^ Spanish-German Query Statistics of dict.leo.org
- ^ Italian-German Query Statistics of dict.leo.org
- ^ Usage tips for the Chinese-German Dictionary (in German)
- ^ Chinese-German Query Statistics of dict.leo.org
[edit] External links
- LEO's entry page (in German)
- The dictionary (in German)
- The dictionary (in English)
