This article proposes an interpretation of how the doctrine of Miguel Antonio Caro, parti- cularly his conceptions regarding history, progress, and order, gave rise to a way of thinking about language as oscillating between two broad tendencies: the old and the new, or the classic and the modern. The dynamics of this conceptual «pendulum» are analyzed in respect to the language politics developed by several members of the Colombian Academy of Language - Michel de Certeau, Dominique Ju- lia and Jacques Revel concerning a definitive linguistic body of knowledge and the role of the same in the comprehension of the national language and the treatment of the existing pa- tois —dialects— in the nation. The central argument is that the very tension that arose from the defense of a traditionalist philosophy as well as the adoption of elements of a scientific knowledge concerning language both per- mitted the Academy to establish its particular manner of advancing in civilizing and consolidating a modern Nation-State.