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This review essay deals with the question of the role and place of verbal language in the learning and teaching of mathematics. We propose an overview of the contributions of the research carried out in French mathematics didactics on this issue, before outlining some perspectives. We first present a rereading oriented by the question of the founding works of the theoretical pillars of the field. Secondly, we report on more recent research on verbal language that contribute to the development of these theoretical approaches in mathematics didactics. Finally, we propose a problematization of the question of the role and place of verbal language in the learning and teaching of mathematics, from a point of view oriented by a Vygotskian theoretical anchorage particularly favorable to this problematization.