Etymologically
Log in

lingua

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 21 October 2026 at 21:10. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • /ˈlin.ɡwa/[1]

Forms

lingua f (plural lingue)[1] The Tuscan form is lingua;[2][3] Old Italian and the northern dialects have lengua, and the TLIO also records lenga and linga.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lingua (“tongue; language”), which already had both senses, as Greek did.[4][5][6] The same word is French langue, Occitan lenga, Catalan llengua, Spanish lengua, Portuguese língua, Sardinian limba and Romanian limbă.[5][7]

The Latin word comes from an older dingua, recorded by the grammarian Marius Victorinus, and goes back to Proto-Italic *dn̥ɣwā and a Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s (“tongue”).[8][1] Its *l-* was taken from lingō (“to lick”).[8][5][1] Cognates include Sanskrit जिह्वा (jihvā́), Old Church Slavonic языкъ (językŭ), Gothic 𐍄𐌿𐌲𐌲𐍉 (tuggō), Old High German zunga and English tongue, and in many of these languages the word for the tongue changed its sounds by taboo or by association with “licking”.[8][5]

Before /ng/ the Latin short vowel gave /i/ in Tuscan but /e/ in the north.[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is the Glossary of Monza of the 10th century.[3] In literature DELI dates the sense “tongue”, the organ of taste and speech, to before 1276 in Guido Guinizelli, who writes that if every part of the body became a tongue, it could not tell his lady's beauty.[4][9]

Semantic evolution

The sense “language”, the system a community uses to speak and write, appears before 1294 in Brunetto Latini, who also uses the word for the particular usage of a group or a writer.[4][10] In the 14th-century Bible translations lingua also means a nation, an old metaphor.[4] The phrase for the Italian language itself is recorded before 1530, and the plural le lingue for foreign languages in 1777, in Pietro Verri.[4] Old Italian already applied the word to anything shaped like a tongue: a strip of land, a tongue of flame (the fire of Pentecost), the pointer of a balance.[3][4][2] A proverb of the time warns la lingua non ha osso ma fa rompere il dosso, “the tongue has no bone, but it breaks backs”.[3]

Lingua franca first meant “the language of the Franks”, that is, of the Westerners, as the peoples of the Levant called them.[4] The learned derivatives are modern, and several follow French: linguaggio is French langage, linguista follows the French and German words, and linguistica (1807) is German Linguistik.[4][5] The cooked tongue of an ox or calf as a dish is recorded in 1869.[4] English used lingua for a language or jargon from 1675.[10]

Timeline

  • 10th century – The word appears in the Glossary of Monza.[3]
  • Before 1276 – Guido Guinizelli uses it for the tongue.[4]
  • Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses it for a language.[4]
  • 14th century – Bible translations use it for a nation.[4]
  • Before 1530 – The word is recorded for the Italian language.[4]
  • 1675 – English lingua “language, jargon” is first recorded.[10]
  • 1777 – Pietro Verri uses the plural for foreign languages.[4]
  • 1807 – Linguistica appears, from German.[5]
  • 1869 – Tommaseo records tongue as a dish.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (anatomy) The tongue, the muscular organ in the mouth used in tasting, chewing, swallowing and speaking: Il dottore mi ha chiesto di tirare fuori la lingua.[6][11][12]
  2. (cooking) Tongue of a slaughtered animal as food: lingua salmistrata.[6][12][13]
  3. Something long and narrow shaped like a tongue: una lingua di terra, a spit of land, una lingua di fuoco.[6][12][3]
  4. A language, the system of speech and writing of a community: Quante lingue si parlano in Svizzera?[6][11][12]
  5. The particular usage of a period, a group or an author: la lingua di Manzoni.[4][6]
  6. (in the plural) Foreign languages, as a subject of study.[4][1]

Word family

  • linguaggio
  • linguista
  • linguistica
  • linguistico
  • linguaccia
  • linguacciuto
  • linguale
  • linguetta
  • linguella
  • linguina
  • linguaiolo
  • slinguare
  • protolingua
  • leccare
  • linguata
  • linguine
  • scilinguare
  • scioglilingua
  • Latin lingua
  • French langue

Usage notes

La lingua batte dove il dente duole, “the tongue goes where the tooth aches”, says that talk keeps returning to what worries us.[13][14] Several plant names are formed with lingua, such as lingua cervina, hart's-tongue fern, and lingua di cane, hound's-tongue, calques of Greek names.[2][12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2238
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  5. ^ a b c d e f Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  6. ^ a b c d e f De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
  7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  8. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  9. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 9, 104
  10. ^ a b c Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
  11. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
  12. ^ a b c d e Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
  13. ^ a b Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
  14. ^ Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana