This article briefly presents the main themes around which the polemical dialogue between Benedetto Croce and Ernst Cassirer has been ignited, focusing on the evolution of two particular aspects of the linguistic thought of the two authors, which are inextricably linked with one another: the language as a supra-individual objective institution and communication. The reconstruction of this itinerary reveals a rapprochement between the linguistic theories of Croce and Cassirer in the last phase of their reflections, retraceable in their common approach to the human and the category of the social; the way of understanding these two concepts shows, however, their distance.