This article traces the historical trajectories that led to the emergence of Romance studies in Germany and language sciences in France, highlighting the intellectual, educational, and institutional frameworks that have shaped these two disciplinary traditions since the nineteenth century. Whereas in France, as in most other countries, the historical-comparative tradition of Romance studies gradually gave way to an approach centred on French, Romance studies in the German-speaking world remained committed throughout the twentieth century to a multilingual and comparative conception of the discipline, closely linked to teacher education. Against the backdrop of ongoing transformations in the language sciences, the paper concludes by considering the contributions that this disciplinary tradition can still make to research, university teaching, and the education of future language teachers.