Although analytic philosophy and philosophical hermeneutics have little in common, there are some analogies between the hermeneutic doctrine that understanding always presupposes a prior understanding (the hermeneutic circle) and the doctrine, held by various philosophers in the analytic tradition, that there is no understanding of linguistic meaning from outside language. I call this view the priority thesis. It implies that language is always prior to thought and to reality and that the latter can only be understood from the point of view of the former. I examine this priority thesis, which has been held in particular by Wittgenstein and by Davidson, and I compare it to Gadamer's views, arguing that it is false.