Talk:Venetian language

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[edit] Color in Infobox

Someone changed the color in this page's infobox, complaining that lawngreen is an eyesore. I agree, it's not the best color, but the reason it was there is that is the (current) color in the template for all Indo-European languages. If you have any better suggestions for a better color scheme (one that gives a unique color for all the known language families), please contribute to the discussion at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages. And, I encourage anyone interested to help out with the project. There are still a lot of languages with articles not using the template.--Tox 11:11, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia in Venetian

If you are interested to support the creation of a Venetian Wikipedia you can go to:click here to see the request for a ven.wikipedia. Skafa 12:23, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Padovano?

I would be interested to see a discussion of Padovano in this article. Linguistically I expect it's just a dialect of Veneto, but I think it has some distinctive features. --Trovatore 23:10, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Veronese Riddle

This article claims the Veronese Riddle is in Venetian; the article on the Riddle says it's a transition between late Latin and early Italian. Which is it? Binabik80 16:03, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Now I remember i inserted that link. I tried to be succint and in doing so i could not explain everything. I believe what is being said here is not at odds with the other article, see my comment here. By the way, this article has told me something i was not quite aware of. I live in Verona and i have always noticed strong similarities between Spanish and Venetian. Fascinating. --Wikipedius 23:15, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] the family tree

I inserted a tree because the "X branches off after Y" language does not make sense to me. It's true there is a partial tree in the box (if a tree pruned of all branches but one can be called a tree) but that tree does not show how Venetian is related to French and Spanish. —Tamfang 17:57, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Um, ok. I tried to clarify the intended meaning; see if it makes sense now. (By the way, that parag was not mine.)
But perhaps we should omit the explanation althogether and just keep the conclusion, namely: "In the traditional classification, Venetian is more closely related to French and Spanish (in that order) than to Italian." After all, the internal node names like "Gallo-Iberian" and "Gallo-Romance" are just hypothetical entities, not real languages.
Moreover, i gather that the tree assumed in this paragraph is only an opinion of some linguists, not the Absolute Truth. In fact, it seems that Romance is one of the examples that are usually invoked to show that language evolution cannot be described by a tree.
All the best, Jorge Stolfi 23:01, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm satisfied with your new language. Thanks. —Tamfang 04:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Given/if that the closest big language to Venetian is French & not Italian, it might be nice to have French example sentences along with the Italian ones. If there are no objections I might add those in. --Adamgarrigus 18:09, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I would agree on saying that venetian bears a good deal of resemblance to French and Spanish (and even more to Occitan and catalan), yet I would not agree on describing it as a Gallo-romance language, provided that celts never succeeded in invading the land, which could explain why it differs from neighbouring languages such as Emilian, Lombard and Piedmontese, but retains area-related similarities with them. exemples : sounding intra-vowel consonants [kaZa](=house), but vowel endings present in other common words [latE](=milk) instead of italian gallo-romance "lat", "let" and franch "lait". for reference see Graffi-Scalise (don't remember the title, sorry). s-ciao vostro.

 morteaglistolti

To set the record straight (until someone disagrees with me!), to say that Veneto and Spanish are "are mutually comprehensible to some extent" is completely inappropriate. This is true in so far as they are both Romance languages, but it gives the impression (and believe me, this is its intent) that they are somehow more closely related than Veneto is to Italian. This is quite frankly ridiculous. I am a native speaker of Spanish and have lived in Veneto for several years now. When I speak in Spanish, I might as well be speaking in Greek. Of course they get a word here or there, but I should hope so since they are both derived from Latin. And quite frankly, when I hear Veneto being spoken (rather frequently) I understand what I understand not because I know Spanish, but because I know Italian.

The reason for this desperate attempt to try to link Veneto to Spanish and simultaneously distance it from Italian is, in my opinion, not based on evidence but on wishful thinking. The fact that Veneto has erroneously been coupled up with Spanish, Catalan (see their language version!) and French (rather less for some reason)is a recent mistake made by people who are not linguists. It is based on geographical location rather than hard evidence. If someone disagrees with me, please cite a reliable source. (To save you lots of wasted time, don't bother, because you won't find one). Certainly Veneto (and other north eastern languages like Friulano) have a lot in common with Iberian languages, but that is to be expected. If you do a very simple pseudo-linguistic exercise by comparing random phrases in Spanish, Veneto and Italian, it becomes immediately obvious which ones look (and sound) more similar.

So why is it necessary to include these comparisons between Spanish and Veneto? Here's my theory. Veneto is a minority language with no official status (not even in Veneto). It has traditionally been referred to (as it still is by most Veneti) a "dialect" (dialetto), and there are lots of patriotic Veneti who want to distance it from Italian, which is for some absurd reason treated like an enemy. The fact of the matter is that fewer and fewer young Veneti are capable or indeed want to speak Veneto, which is continuously being seen by young generations as provincial.

All of this is related to the ridiculous idea that many north eastern Italians have that they are "Celtic". Besides being historically and genetically incorrect, it becomes immediately obvious to the visitor of Veneto that the people have absolutely nothing in common with the residual Celtic peoples of Europe. The reason for this legend about Italian Celts is based on xenophobia and racism. The Celtic cross (which remains a purely religious symbol in Ireland) has been perverted into a symbol of fascism by various far right-wing Italians. The racism is rife (take a look at the recent situation in Via Anelli in Padova where a Berlin-type wall was erected to separate the Italians from the foreigners.) There have even been people making claims that there are astounding links between Veneto and the Celtic languages!

So, to conclude my ranting, is it really necessary to include all of this "mutually comprehensible" rubbish in an otherwise serious (and well written) article? And if so, is it asking too much to include a reliable reference or source, rather than pure fantastical speculation? (I would include a translation in Spanish, but I don't know if very many Veneti would have dictionaries to translate it!) Massimo377 02:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Goldoni and Commedia dell'arte

Jorge/everybody: Perhaps I shouldn't have deleted the old version straight away but the wording was really awkard. Pierrot (I still can't figure out what Pierrot has to do with venetian language...), Arlecchino etc were not invented by Goldoni (therefore can't be considered his characters), and Goldoni himself is famous because he reformed the commedia dell'arte. The current version is much better than the previous, anyway, although Arlecchino had a significant role in Goldoni's plays (no doubt about it), i think the "commedia dell'arte" as mentioned in the article should be considered "italian" rather than venetian. Also, I am not so sure that Goldoni's plays made Arlecchino become part of world's folklore... I presume this is questionable... perhaps contributed to make. I think the text can be improved further. Your thoughts?Lorenzino 21:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I do not know, really. Pierrot was indeed a big mistake of mine, and Colombina seems to be too. But I still believe that the world knows Arlecchino as a theatrical character almost only through Goldoni's plays; see e.g. [1]. Indeed, the world seems to believe (as I did until yesterday) that Goldoni's theater is typical "Commedia dell'Arte"; whereas now I have learned from Carlo Goldoni that he has even been called its nemesis.
Arlecchino is also well known as a Mardi Gras costume, and indeed he and his love Colombina are traditional items in Brazilian Carnaval's folklore. But I do not know whether that folklore came to Portugal from France, or directly from Venetian/Italian Carnevale. In the former case, Goldoni may have helped. How popular was the Commedia dell'Arte (other than Goldoni's) in France?
All the best, Jorge Stolfi 05:19, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Writing system

Jorge, I amendend your contribution. Your clarification was inconsistent with the article itself: "Otherwise, the spelling rules are mostly those of Italian, except that x traditionally sounds similar to the z in English zero. As in Italian, the letter s between vowels usually represents the [z] sound, so one writes ss in those contexts to get a simple [s]: basa = [baza] ("(he/she) kisses"), bassa = [basa] ("low")." We had just stated that the [z] sound is written with an x, and one line below now I read it's represented with an s. I wrote about the two different systems used although i believe the x/s is the better and it's also the one used in the Wikipedia Veneta http://vec.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiuto:Convenzsion_de_scritura . Cheers Lorenzino 14:43, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

The wording was a bit confusing, but not inconsistent. The letter x, which is not used in Italian, is pronounced [z] if used in Venetian, e.g. in Venice tradition "el ghe xe". But still, in all traditions, s between two vowels is pronounced [z], too, according to the Italian model; as in baso ("kiss"). On the other hand, in all traditions, s at the beginning of a word is usually pronounced [s] -- again, as in Italian.
Note that while there never was an "official" spelling, there is' a centuries-old tradition of spelling Venetian with some approximation of the Italian spelling (Keep in mind that, for the last 150 years or more, anyone who knew how to write had learned the Italian system at school. Check for example the site of Francesco Artico, which is representative of all Venetial texts I have seen so far.
The modern systems, like the one adopted for the Venetian Wikipedia, may be popular among those dreaming to revive Venetian, Lega Nord style or whatever. But I don't quite see the point of that effort. Presently Venetian is valuable (a) for its literary heritage (which, while not negligible, is dwarfed by that of Tuscan); and (b) to old folks like me, for its sentimental value. Introducing a new spelling system will negate (a) and (b). So what is the point?
100 years ago one may have debated whether teaching Italian to the Venetans was worth the effort. Perhaps it was a stupid decision, but anyway it was taken. Now that the effort has been done, going back would be triple stupid: all the effort again (to teeach them the "new standard Venetian"), only to get to a situation where the "market" for each citizen would be reduced from a community of 50 million(?) to one of 2 million, with a much smaller literary baggage, zero world recognition, etc. Even the most ardent separatist must see that exchanging Italian for Venetian does not make economic sense. No, thanks. I am happy to enjoy what is left of Venetian while I live (obviously, spelled the way I am used to); but I will not feel very sorry if the language dies before I do. All the best, Jorge Stolfi 15:37, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


Sir, I don't know what you are talking about. I'm not a separatist and I don't vote for Lega Nord. I thought this was a discussion about the language but here I find your political moanings. Fair enough. Going back to the point I personally prefer the x/s system as it reflects the phonetics with basically no exceptions. And spelling systems are agreed to reflect a spoken language, not the other way round. The s/ss leads to lots of exceptions, more than in italian. And, just for your reference, in the proper italian diction the intervocalic s should be pronounced sorda not sonora. Casa shouldn't be pronounced [kaza] but [kasa] and it IS still pronounced like that in many regions in Italy. The italian intervocalic s is different from the venetan. It's like trying to fit a suit to someone who's a different size. Different languages can have different rules...! I don't find irrespectful for anybody, not even for old literature that I love anyway. I find your final sentence much more offensive, if a bomb were dropped on the colosseum I'd feel DEEPLY sorry. And IMHO (and in Unesco's too...) linguistic heritage is as precious as architectural one. But these are ony opinions and they don't matter anyway. The fact is that this system exists and is used, therefore I think this should be reported. Anyway I'm happy enough with the current version. Regards. Lorenzino 23:16, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Dear Mr. Lorenzino, sorry if my words souded offensive; that was absolutely not my intent. Rest assured that I did not mean to say that anyone who loves dialect or who favors a new spelling votes for Lega Nord or whatever!
As for the spelling system, my point is that at the moment the spelling system of Venetian is the traditional one, based on the Italian spelling. With all its faults and inconsistencies, it has the weight of some 500 years of literature, and I believe that it is the most "natural" for most speakers, because they learned it at school. I agree that the new spelling systems are more logical, but they are still proposals, and it is not clear whether they will (or should) be widely accepted; therefore they should not be given precedence over the traditional system. (They could be a separate subsection, or, if that is more than a couple of paragraphs, a separate article.)
As for my final comment, the difference between a language like Venetian and a building like the Coliseum is that the latter is made of bricks, the former is made of people. It is certainly worth "wasting" a few bricks to preserve an important building, for our enjoyment; but it is not acceptable to impoverish some people's lives for the sake of preserving a language. If someone chooses freely to learn Venetian, preserve it, document it, etc. (like we have been doing here), that is wonderful. But if someone tries to impose Venetian on other people, or tries to prevent people from switching to Italian, or just tries to convince people to use it, that is not so wonderful anymore: it means trying to use other people as building material for a museum, for one's own enjoyment. It is like trying to convince women to use 19th century-style baleen corsets, because some men think that they look nicer that way. Or like lamenting the end of slavery — which, by te way, was far more fundamental to the culture of the Americas than Venetian is to the culture of Veneto.
Man has been speaking languages for the last 100,000 years at least, and it seems that no language can live longer than 1000-2000 years. Within that time span, if a language does not lose ground to another language, it mutates to the point of incomprehensibility. So, in the history of mankind there have been probably a hundred dead languages for every language that is alive today. On the other hand, about a hundred new creole languages have been born in the past 500 years alone, and many major languages are clearly diverging and will probbaly split in a few centuries more. All this is to say the loss of a language is nowhere as bad as the esxtinction of an animal species, but more like the death of a person: a sad event for its friends, but something we must learn to accept as part of the natural order of things. All the best, Jorge Stolfi 06:19, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

two more things. first of all, venetian is still alive, although we youngsters speak it in a different way from our grand-parents, using words and concepts they didn't know of "a so ndà zercare na storia in internèt ma me go ciapà on virus che me ga incatillà el ardisc". still it is a language, spoken by 2 million people (although according to an inquiry led by Il Gazzettino, whose quality has often proven to be dubious but still is a major area newspaper, roughly 75% of the venetian population speaks it at home, thus much more than 3 millions) and it should therefore be granted at least local official status, such as city council use. nowadays catalan, which was forbidden by Franco, is still spoken by 6 million people, in spite of 40 years of prohibition, and is now flourishing. it is not because it is some idiots who defend italian dialects that they must not be defended, in order to spite their face!!!

secondly, the θ sound that was described as regular in the central variant, is seen as mispronounciation (ła zhepoła) in my zone (polesine) where it is substituted by an allophone, whose symbol is unknown to me. it's another hissing sound, pronounced as an english "th", where the tongue is not placed between the teeth but right behind them, and makes it similar to a regular s, which is also, by the way, substituted by a weird sh-like sound (sorry, can't find the IPA) . any clues? s-ciao vostro. morteaglistolti.

[edit] Venetian in Dalmatia?

I am from Dalmatia, and so far I haven't heard there exist any remnants of Venetian language here. Some citation or source to confirm it would be in order, otherwise it should be removed. --Arny 14:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

it's confirmed by Ethnologue - Lorenzino 23:01, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, Ethnologue is not always accurate. Maybe we should write something like "According to Ethnologue, ...". --zeno 19:02, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK, Venetian slowly supplanted the Istrian and Dalmatian spoken in those areas (due to their being parts of the Venetian Republic until the end of the 18th C.) Of course, by then the numbers of Romance speakers compared to Croats was very small and combine this with the ethnic cleansing of the area by Tito's Yugoslavia after WWII and there's not likely to be much trace left by now. Seek100 17:44, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some errors

Please, follow the changes in Italian Wikipedia. This article has a lot of mistakes and this is similar to the old italian version. --Ilario 01:12, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help with translation

I'm currently working on a script intended to create short articles on political parties on a variety of wikipedias simultaneously. However, in order for the technique to work I need help with translations to various languages. If you know any of the languages listed at User:Soman/Lang-Help, then please help by filling in the blanks. For example I need help with Venetian. Thanks, --Soman 15:08, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questionable sentence in intro

"Although commonly referred to as an Italian dialect (diałeto, dialetto), even by its speakers, it does not descend from the Italian language but has its own morphology, syntax and lexicon."

This sentence makes absolutely no sense at all. I'm trying to count how many non sequiturs there are in there:

  1. Having its own morphology, syntax and lexicon is neither a criterion for not being a dialect, nor for not being descended from Italian. Dialects too have their own morphologies, syntax and lexica, and so do things that are descended from something else.
  2. The sentence is playing fast and loose with the concept of "Italian" in the first place. If by "Italian" is meant the modern standard variety of Italian, then of course Veneziano isn't descended from it; they are obviously sister varieties descended from whatever historical ancestor(s) they had. If by "Italian" is meant the historical ancestor of today's standard Italian, well, that needs to be explained in the "Classification" section.
  3. In dialect geography, "having dialect status within a single language unit" and "being descended from a single, unique historical ancestor" are not really the same thing anyway.

I'm trying to come up with a better formulation, but maybe somebody else has some ideas too. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:58, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

It should be noted that according to the article, just less than half of the people in the Veneto speak Venetian. I would argue that number is even less, since the overwhelming majority of the natives speak Venetian Italian (or an Italianized Venetian), not Venetian per say. 66.183.217.31 20:24, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tulcea, Romania??

"Venetian was spread through the world by the massive emigration from the Veneto region between 1870 and 1905. Those migrants created large Venetian-speaking communities in Brazil, Mexico, and Romania..." This statement is incorrect regarding Romania. There was no migration to Romania during this period and any traces of Venetian/ Italian language are rooted in trading outposts established much earlier (11th-17th centuries). Nonetheless, the article on Tulcea makes no reference to any Venetian connection, so I don't know if the statement about Tulcea or Romania is valid at all. Can anyone confirm? 66.183.217.31 20:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

One more thing... It should also be noted that in Mexico and Brazil, the Venetian that may be spoken should likely be categorized as a variation (i.e. Mexican Venetian, Brasilian Venetian). If it does indeed exist in some form in Romania, the same would apply; however, we are speaking about centuries, so at best it would be Venetian-influenced Romanian. 66.183.217.31 20:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Croatia and Slovenia

Well it makes sense that there should be speakers of Venetian in these two countries judging by the centuries of their rule. Is there however any proof from their individual censa that Venetian language is declared? Or is it simply taken for granted to be Venetian when infact the locals have actually declared Italian? I always thought that the number of indigenous Western Romance language speakers of the Adriatic were mostly descended from the Italians who settled there during the interwar period; I was led to believe that the pre-settled Western Romance speakers who surely did speak Venetian embraced the Standard Italian language and an Italian national identity. Evlekis 17:00, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Curiosity

Just a small addend here. Recently I went to Italy together with my mother for the first time, who speaks the 'Talian' (Venetian variant spoken in Brazil). We had an appointment with relatives from my father´s side, which are from the Vicenza vicinity. My mother is discendant from the Verona vicinity. When we met these people, after 130 years that my mother´s family had left the Veneto region, they identified strong Veronese accent/dialect on her talk. That was surprising.

Besides that, a common belief here in Brazil is that Venetian became the most spoken italian dialect here because there was a massive wave of immigrants from the Veneto. The italians from other regions had to adapt to be understood, so it is not odd to have people here which family roots are from Calabria, Friuli or Toscana that DO speak Venetian.

Sadly, during the WWII, there was strong political persecution against italian, german and japanese heritage here in Brazil, so very few people still do talk some Venetian. Most people who do still speak some venetian are in their fifties or older.

I myself, understand a few words, but most of the time I talk regular Italian (did a course) when I want to make my 'nonno' happy (son of a Veronese immigrant).

Ciao! --HSeganfredo (talk) 04:27, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Western Romance

I thought the Western Romance languages were supposed to be defined by a plural in -s. But here Venetian is listed as a Western Romance language while it seems to exhibit an Italian plural: gati, gate. So what's the matter? Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 18:52, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] B-class: that's why

The matter is that this article is not very scientific and objective as it is disturbed by politics. That's why, rightly, this is a B-class article! I give you two examples of true statements which cannot be found in the article: - the Venetian language is not officially recognised in Italy as a minority language; - Italian (Tuscan) was adopted by Venetians (as official and culture language) well before the unification of Italy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.140.0.27 (talk) 14:32, 2 June 2008 (UTC)