01 May 2022
On This Day
1 May 2022 Cheryl

1 May 1852: The Bros Grimm publish the first part of a dictionary

The Bros Grimm and The German Dictionary

In 1837, Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover demanded oaths of allegiance from all professors at Göttingen University where Jacob and Wilhelm taught Germanic studies. The brothers refused to pledge to the king and, along with five other professors, were forced to leave the city. Without an income and in extreme financial difficulty they began what would become their lifelong project — the German Dictionary. [1]

The Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, are known for their collection of fairy tales, but they also made a significant contribution to the study of the German language.

In 1838, while employed as professors in Göttingen, Germany, (positions they subsequently lost due to political upheaval) the brothers commenced working on a project to create a comprehensive dictionary of the German language.

After more than a decade of work, the brothers began to release their first results, publishing the first part of their dictionary on 1 May 1852. However, in their lifetime they only managed to complete a portion of the task. In fact, the project was so massive that the brothers continued on it for the next 50 years until their deaths. Wilhelm Grimm wrote the articles to the letter D and died in 1859; Jacob, who was able to fully complete the letters A, B, C and E, died in 1863 while working on the entry for “Frucht” (fruit).

After the brothers’ deaths, the project was considered so important that it needed to be finished, and a team continued the work. In 1867, government funding was provided, and for many years the Grimms’ successors toiled. When finally completed in 1961, more than a century after the first section was published, the dictionary contained over 32 volumes, with more than 350,000 entries.

Planning for a second edition began in 1957, four years before the first edition was even finished. The original entries created by the Brothers Grimm were so outdated that they needed complete revision. Finally, 178 years after it was begun, the last entry was placed in The German Dictionary begun by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in 2016. Today, the dictionary, which weighs 84 kilograms in its printed form, is available in both print and digital editions.