Etymologies of 'linguistics' and 'language'

[john]

 Dear Funknet Colleagues, 

We (linguists at the University of
Haifa) are in the midst of a truly inane confrontation with the
literature specialists in our department (there are 5 of us and 6/7 of
them). We are attempting to establish a linguistics stream with a
specific curriculum, organizational autonomy, etc. (parallel to the
literature stream which already exists in the department) and they are
rejecting this on the reasoning that we are a 'language' department, not
a 'linguistics' department. They don't seem to recognize the absurdity
of this argument, and because there are more of them than us, it seems
that we need to argue with them on their level. So what is the etymology
of these words? After a little research on the internet, it looks to me
like they both came into English through French, ultimately from Latin
'lingua', but 'language' was the regular historical development whereas
'linguistic' was a later Latinization which was adopted by those
developing the scientific study of language, because Latinate words
sound more scientific. Is this right, and could any of you suggest
references to this of the type that would impress literature
specialists? 

Thanks, 

John