Natio and lingua : Revisiting a Semantic Couplet (Twelfth to Fifteenth Centuries)

Medieval authors often used the Latin term lingua (or its vernacular equivalents) as a synonym for natio , and yet the implications of this semantic confusion (which originates in biblical texts) have not been fully explored. This article analyzes this quasi-semantic equivalence over a longer durée in order to demonstrate that the usage of lingua in the sense of natio did not automatically contribute to the assimilation of the two concepts. On the contrary, it appears to have led, more often, to the desemanticization of the term lingua . A comparative analysis of different texts on a pan-European scale suggests the need to revisit the meanings of sources invoking lingua in the context of natio in order to gauge this term's development on a case-by-case basis.