Whoever wants to make it in the 16th century must have a language of language: in order to trade, to have faith and to carry out scientific research. For this reason, Plantin publishes numerous language works and textbooks. He has the appropriate material to print foreign language, one of the few printing offices to be able to do so.
The first explanatory dictionary of the Dutch language
Because Plantin lacked a good dicitionary, he created one himself. In 1573 he published Treasures of spoken Dutch. 25 years later, Jan Moretus published the first explanatory dictionary of the Dutch language, including 40,000 keywords, the Etymologicum Teutonicae linguae of Cornelis Kiliaan, his regular proofreader. Plantin's son-in-law Raphelengius writes the first Arabic dictionary in Europe.
