Definition
Latin: "tongue" or "speech." In old English legal usage, *lingua* referred to the spoken verdict of a jury — specifically, the oral declaration by which a jury rendered its finding. The term appears in the formula *ponit se super linguas vestras de hoc de bono et malo* ("of this he puts himself upon your tongues, for good and for evil"), by which a defendant submitted himself to the jury's judgment. The phrase captures the ancient conception of the verdict as something spoken aloud rather than written — the literal "tongue" of the assembled jurors speaking the law's outcome.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A synonym for "tongue"; also a technical term in entomology for a median process of the labium at the underside of an insect's mouth.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "A tongue. A median process of the labium, at the under side of the mouth in insects, and serving as a tongue."
The common meaning and the legal meaning share the same root image — the tongue as organ of speech — but diverge sharply in application. In legal Latin, *lingua* is not anatomical but procedural: it names the jury's spoken verdict as a formal legal act. A researcher encountering the term in a common-language source will find only the physical organ; the legal usage points to oral adjudication as a historical institution.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in medieval and early common law sources will encounter *lingua* almost exclusively in its jury-verdict sense, embedded in formulaic Latin pleading language. The phrase *ponit se super linguas vestras* is a signature formula of trial by jury in its early form, and understanding *lingua* as a technical term — not merely decorative Latin for "tongue" — is essential to reading those records accurately.
The term signals a moment in legal history when the verdict was an oral, communal pronouncement rather than a written finding. Sources predating the regularization of written jury returns will use this vocabulary in ways that differ materially from later procedural language. Researchers should not assume that *lingua* in a legal context maps neatly onto modern concepts of "verdict" or "jury decision" — it carries a specific procedural and ceremonial weight tied to oral declaration.
Anderson's entry offers no direct help here, as it covers *lineal* rather than *lingua* (a probable indexing adjacency). Researchers should not rely on Anderson for this term and should go directly to Bracton and comparable primary sources.
The Bracton citation preserved in Burrill — *fol. 143 b* — is the key primary source for this usage and should anchor any serious research into the term's legal function.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill is the only source among the shelf dictionaries that directly addresses *lingua* in its legal sense. His entry is brief but precise: he identifies the Latin meaning ("a tongue; speech"), situates the term in "old English law," and provides the formula from Bracton with a specific folio reference. This is genuinely instructive, because the Bracton passage (*fol. 143 b*) places *lingua* squarely in the context of jury trial submission — the defendant casting himself upon the jury's tongues for judgment.
Anderson's entry does not address *lingua*. The entry retrieved under this term in Anderson's is for *lineal*, a separate term entirely, and offers no support for research into *lingua*.
Historical dictionaries generally do not develop this term beyond Burrill's concise treatment. The legal usage is archaic enough that it falls outside the scope of most modern legal dictionaries. Researchers seeking fuller treatment must work from the primary sources, particularly Bracton, rather than from secondary dictionary support.
Jurisdictional Note
*Lingua* in its legal sense is a term of old English law with no direct parallel in American legal usage. It does not appear as a live term in any modern jurisdiction. Its relevance is entirely historical and confined to the common law tradition as it existed prior to the standardization of written jury verdicts.