Both "intercultural education" and "comparative education" have a history of problematising their identity, which is also reflected in the terminology adopted for defining them, mostly focused on the discussion of the exact meaning of the qualifying adjective. This paper argues that more attention needs to be devoted to the second term of the dyad--"education"--and specifically, to the peculiar polysemy of the term in the English language, covering a range of meanings that in other languages are expressed by distinct terms. This has a remarkable influence on the elaboration of the notion of comparative and intercultural education in international discourse; and from another point of view, it tends to marginalise different streams of reflection emanating from non-Anglo Saxon cultures, due to the influence that the need to use the English language for participation in international debate has on the expression of concepts coming from other languages and cultures. Through a discussion of concepts and terminologies belonging to neo-Latin cultural traditions, the paper advocates a critical use of the language of communication, with an approach that is at the same time comparative and pluri-cultural, proposing a possible "intercultural turn" for comparison.