(Redirected from Venetian Language)

A sign in Venetian reading "Here we also speak Venetian"
'Venetian' or 'Venetan' is a
Romance language spoken by over five million people,
mostly in the
Veneto region of
Italy. The language is called '''vèneto''' in Venetian, '''veneto''' in Italian; the variant spoken in
Venice is called '''venezsiàn/venesiàn''' or '''veneziano''', respectively. Although commonly referred to as an
Italian dialect (''diałeto'', ''dialetto''), even by its speakers, it displays notable structural differences from Italian proper. It belongs to the
Northern Italian group within
Romance languages.
On March 28, 2007 the Regional Council of Vèneto officially recognized the existence of the Venetan Language (Łéngua Vèneta) by passing with a vast majority the law on the "tutela e valorizzazione della lingua e della cultura veneta" with the vote of both ruling and opposition parties.
Venetan proper can be distinguished from Venetian Italian, the dialect of Italian influenced by local Venetian features that is also spoken in the region. Compare:
(1) 'Venetan': ''Marco el xe drio rivar'' ('Marco is arriving')
(2) 'Venetian Italian': ''Marco (el) sta rivando''
(3) 'Standard Italian': ''Marco sta arrivando''
Venetian should also not be confused with
Venetic, an apparently unrelated (and extinct) Indo-European language that was spoken in the Veneto region around the 6th century BC.
History

A street sign in Venice using the Venetian ''calle'', as opposed to the Italian ''via''.
Venetian descends from
Vulgar Latin, possibly influenced by the Venetic
substratum and by the languages of the
Germanic tribes (
Visigoths,
Ostrogoths and
Lombards) that invaded northern Italy in the 5th century. The earliest texts that can be recognized as "Venetian" date from the 13th century.
The language enjoyed substantial prestige in the days of the
Venetian Republic, when it attained the status of a
lingua franca in the
Mediterranean. Notable Venetian-language authors are the playwrights
Ruzante (1502–1542) and
Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793). Both Ruzante and Goldoni, following the old Italian theater tradition (''
Commedia dell'Arte''), used Venetian in their comedies as the speech of the common folk. They are ranked among the foremost Italian theatrical authors of all time, and Goldoni's plays are still performed today. Other notable works in Venetian are the translations of the
Iliad by
Casanova (1725–1798) and
Francesco Boaretti, and the poems of
Biagio Marin (1891–1985). Notable also is a manuscript titled "
Dialogue ... on the New star" attributed to
Galileo (1564–1642).
However, as a
literary language Venetian was overshadowed by the
Tuscan "dialect" of
Dante, and by the
French languages like
Provençal and the
Oïl languages. After the demise of the Republic, Venetian gradually ceased to be used for administrative purposes; and when Italy was
unified, in the 19th century, the Tuscan language was imposed as the basis of the
national language of Italy. Since that time Venetian, deprived of any official status, has steadily lost ground to Italian. At present, virtually all its speakers are
bilingual, and use Venetian only in informal contexts.
On the other hand, 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, where the language is still spoken today. Internal migrations under the
Fascist regime also sent many Venetian speakers to other regions of Italy.
Geographic distribution
Venetian is spoken mainly in the Italian regions of
Veneto and
Friuli-Venezia Giulia and in both
Slovenia and
Croatia (
Istria,
Kvarner Gulf and
Dalmatia). Smaller communities are found in the provinces of
Lombardy,
Trento,
Emilia (in
Mantova,
Rimini, and
Forlì),
Lazio (
Pontine Marshes), and in
Romania (
Tulcea). It is also spoken in North and South America by the descendants of Italian immigrants. Notable examples of this are the city of
Chipilo,
Mexico or the
Talian dialect spoken in
Brazilian states of
Rio Grande do Sul and
Santa Catarina.
Classification
Venetian descends from
Vulgar Latin — like all other Romance languages, including Italian and the other Italian dialects. However, in the traditional classification of Romance languages, Venetian and Italian belong to different sub-branches of the
Italo-Western branch: Venetian is a member of the
Gallo-Iberian group, which also includes
Catalan,
Spanish,
Portuguese and
French, among others; whereas Italian is a member of the
Italo-Dalmatian group. More precisely, Venetian belongs to the
Gallo-Romance sub-branch of
Gallo-Iberian, which includes French and Catalan but not Spanish. In that classification, therefore, Venetian is more closely related to Catalan, French and Spanish (in that order) than to Italian.
On the other hand, although French and Venetian are now mutually intelligible only to a small degree (mostly due to major changes in French pronunciation over the last few centuries), Spanish and Venetian are mutually comprehensible to some extent.
Regional variants
The main regional variants and sub-variants of Venetian are
★ ''Central'' (
Padua,
Vicenza,
Polesine), with about 1,500,000 speakers.
★ ''Eastern/Coastal'' (
Venice,
Trieste,
Grado,
Istria,
Rijeka).
★ ''Western'' (
Verona,
Trento).
★ ''North-Central'' (
Treviso, parts of
Pordenonese).
★ ''Northern'' (
Belluno, comprising
Feltre,
Agordo,
Cadore,
Zoldo Alto).
All these variants are mutually intelligible, with a minimum 92% between the most diverging ones (Central and Western). Modern speakers reportedly can still understand to some extent Venetian texts from the 1300s.
Other noteworthy variants are spoken in
★
Chioggia,
★
Pontine Marshes,
★
Dalmatia,
Croatia,
★
Rio Grande do Sul and
Santa Catarina,
Brazil ("
Talian"),
★
Chipilo,
Mexico,
★
Tulcea,
Romania,
★ Peripheral
creole languages along the southern border (nearly extinct).
Language features
Familial attributes
Like most Romance languages, Venetian has mostly abandoned the Latin
case system, in favor of
prepositions and a more rigid
subject-verb-object sentence structure. It has thus become more
analytic, if not quite as much as English. Venetian also has the Romance
articles, both definite (derived from the Latin demonstrative ''ille'') and indefinite (derived from the numeral ''unus'').
Venetian also retained the Latin concepts of
gender (masculine and feminine) and
number (singular and plural). Nouns and adjectives can be modified by suffixes that indicate several qualities such as size, endearment, deprecation, etc. Adjectives (usually postfixed) and articles are inflected to agree with the noun in gender and number:
★ ''el gato grasso'', the fat (male) cat.
★ ''ła gata grassa'', the fat (female) cat.
★ ''i gati grassi'', the fat (male) cats.
★ ''łe gate grasse'', the fat (female) cats.
★ ''el gaton grasso'', the fat big (male) cat.
★ ''ła gatona grassa'', the fat big (female) cat.
★ ''un bel gateło'', a nice small (male) cat.
★ ''na bea gateła'', a nice small (female) cat.
Some pronouns retain a neuter form reserved for abstract nouns (''par questo'' "for this reason" , ''de queło'' "about that fact" n.) different from the masculin (''par 'sto qua'' "for this boy/dog" , ''de queło là'' "about that man/book" m.) while in Italian masculine forms also work for the neuter (per questo="for this boy/reason"; di quello="about that man/fact").
Specific attributes
Sound system
Venetian has some sounds not present in Italian, an 'interdental voiceless' fricative [θ] spelled ''ç'' or ''z(h)'' and similar to
English ''th'' in ''thing'' and ''thought'', to
Castilian (not Latin-American)
Spanish ''c(e, i)/z'' (as in ''cero'', ''cien'', ''zapato''), Modern
Greek θ (theta), and
Icelandic Thorn þ/Þ and Eth Ð/ð; it occurs, for example, in ''çena/zhena'' (supper), which sounds the same as Castilian Spanish ''cena'' (same meaning). However this sound, which is present only in some variants of the language (Bellunese, north-Trevisan, some Central Venetian rural areas around Padua, Vicenza and the mouth of the river Po), is considered provincial with most variants using other sounds instead such as , , and . Some variants also present an 'interdental voiced' fricative written "z" (el pian'z'e=he cries) but this often turns into voiced-S, i.e. (written ''x'': el pian'x'e) or into dental D (el pian'd'e).
In some varieties the intervocalic L turns into a soft "evanescent" L (this
alternation is often represented with one spelling ''ł''). The pronunciation of this phoneme varies from an almost ''e'' in the region of Venice, to a partially vocalised ''l'' further inland, to void in some mountainous areas. Thus, for example, ''góndoła'' may sound like ''góndoea'', ''góndola'' or ''góndoa''. In the latter variants, the "ł" spelling prevents possible confusion between pairs like ''scóła/skóła'' ("school") and ''scóa/skóła'' ("broom"). Standard Italian had this type of L in more limited conditions, but changed the spelling to ''i'' (''bianco'', ''chiamare'' from earlier ''blancus'', ''clamare'').
Venetian does not have the doubled consonant sounds characteristic of Tuscan and many other Italian dialects: thus Italian ''fette'', ''palla'', ''penna'' ("slices", "ball", and "pen") are ''fete'', ''bała'', and ''pena'' in Venetian. The masculine singular ending, which is usually ''-o / -e'' in Italian, is often voided in Venetian, particularly in the countryside varieties: Italian ''pieno'' ("full") is ''pien'', and ''altare'' is ''altar''. Also, the masculine article ''el'' is often shortened to '' 'l''.
Lexicon
The Venetian lexicon has a large number of original word forms, such as ''tosàt'' ("lad", in Italian ''ragazzo''), ''técia'' ("pan", ''pentola''), ''caréga'' ("chair", ''sedia''), ''còtoła'' ("skirt", ''sottana''), ''bìsi'' ("peas", ''piselli''), ''sgorlàr'' ("to shake", ''scuotere''), and many more.
Redundant subject pronouns
A peculiarity of Venetian grammar is a "semi-analytical" verbal flexion, with a compulsory "
clitic subject pronoun" before the verb in many sentences, "echoing" the subject as an ending or a weak pronoun. Independent/emphatic pronouns (e.g. ''ti''), on the contrary, are optional.
★ Italian: ''(Tu) eri sporco'' ("You were dirty").
★ Venetian: ''(Ti) te jèra sporc'' or even ''Ti te jèri/xeri sporco'' (lit. "(You) you were dirty").
★ Italian: ''Il cane era sporco'' ("The dog was dirty").
★ Venetian: ''El can 'l jèra sporc[o]'' (lit. "The dog he was dirty").
★ Italian: ''(Tu) ti sei domandato'' ("You have asked yourself").
★ Venetian: ''(Ti) te te à/gà/ghè domandà'' (lit. "(You) you yourself have asked").
The clitic subject pronoun (''te, el/ła, i/łe'') is used with the 2nd and 3rd person signular, and with the 3rd person plural. This feature may have arisen as a compensation for the fact that the 2nd- and 3rd-person inflections for most verbs, which are still
distinct in Italian and many other Romance languages, are
identical in Venetian. (The
Piedmontese language also has clitic subject pronouns, but the rules are somewhat different.)
Indeed, the verbal forms requiring subject clitics can often change or even drop their endings without problems of confusion because the clitic itself provide the necessary information (in Piedmontese and Milanese the clitic is not sufficient to mark the verb and often requires the cooccurence of a specific ending).
The clitics are the same in whole Veneto with two exceptions: ''te'' becomes ''ti'' in Venice (but is different from emphatic ''TI''!) and becomes ''tu'' in some bellunese areas. ''El'' becomes ''Al'' in bellunese.
----------'2nd singular' person present indicative of "magnar" -----------
★ Venetian in Venice: ''(TI) ti magn'i''' (=lit." (You) you eat")
★ Venetian in Padua-Vicenza-Rovigo-Verona: ''(TI) te magn'i''' (=lit. "(You) you eat")
★ Venetian in Treviso-Belluno: ''(TI) te magn'a''' (=lit. "(You) you eat")
----------'2nd singular' person imperf. indicative of "magnar" -----------
★ Venetian in Venice: ''(TI) ti magnav'i''' (=lit. "(You) you used to eat")
★ Venetian in Pad-Vic-Rov-Ver: ''(TI) te magnav'i''' (=lit. "(You) you used to eat")
★ Venetian in Treviso-Belluno: ''(TI) te/tu magnav'a'''/magné'a'''(=lit. "(You) you used to eat")
----------'2nd singular' person present indicative of "sentir" -----------
★ Venetian in Venice-Verona: ''(TI) te/ti sent'i' (=lit. "(You) you hear=you feel")
★ Venetian in Vic-Pad-Rov: ''(TI) te s'i'nti'' (=lit. "(You) you hear=you feel")
★ Venetian in Treviso: ''(TI) te sent'e''' (=lit. "(You) you hear=you feel")
★ Venetian in Belluno: ''(TI) te/tu sen't' (=lit. "(You) you hear=you feel")
----------'3rd singular' person present indicative of "sentir" -----------
★ Venetian Ven-Ver-Vic-Pad-Rov: ''(EL CAN) el sent'e''' (=lit. "(The dog) he hears=he feels")
★ Venetian Trev-Bell: ''(EL CAN) el/al sen't''' (=lit. "(The dog) he hears=he feels")
Such variations in last and internal vowels do not block reciprocal comprehension between people in Veneto because what is felt as important to mark the verb is the clitic ("te, el").
Also general Venetian forms exist with no endings:
★ Venetian (in whole Veneto): ''te vie'n' / ti vie'n''' ("you come")
★ Venetian (in whole Veneto): ''el vie'n''' (lit. "he come" as there was no ''-s'')
★ Venetian (in whole Veneto): ''i vie'n''' ("they come")
Note that when the subject is postverbal (motion verbs, unaccusative verbs) the clitic is banned and the past participle of compound forms (if any) is invariably masc.singular, yielding a semi-impersonal form which does not exist in Italian:
'Normal form'
★ Italian: ''Le mie sorelle sono arrivat'e''' ("[as for] My sisters have arrived-''f.pl.''")
★ Venetian: ''Mé sorełe 'łe' xe/è rivà'e' '' (lit."[as for] My sisters they-''cl.f.pl.'' have arrived-''f.pl.''")
'Impersonal form' (only in Venetian)
★ Italian: ''Sono arrivat'e' le mie sorelle'' (hey, the news! "my sisters have arrived")
★ Venetian: ''Xe/Gh'è rivà mé sorełe'' (lit. "(there) has arrived-''m.sg.'' my sisters") --- no clitic and an invariable m.sg. past participle
In Italian the past participle is always inflected while in the Venetian in the impersonal form it is invariable and the verb has no plural (fem.) clitic, differently from the normal flection.
Interrogative inflection
Venetian also has a special ''interrogative'' verbal flexion used for direct questions, which also incorporates a redundant pronoun:
★ Italian: ''(Tu) eri sporco?'' ("Were you dirty?").
★ Venetian: ''(Ti) jèritu sporc?'' or even ''(Ti) xèrito sporco?'' (lit. "You were-you dirty?")
★ Italian: ''Il cane era sporco?'' ("Was the dog dirty?").
★ Venetian: ''El can jèreło sporc[o]?'' (lit. "The dog was-he dirty?")
★ or even: ''Jèreło sporc[o] el can ?'' (lit. "Was-he dirty the dog ?")
★ Italian: ''(Tu) ti sei domandato?'' ("Have you asked yourself?").
★ Venetian: ''(Ti) te àtu/gatu/ghètu/ghèto domandà?'' (lit. "You to-yourself have-you asked?")
Auxiliary verbs
Reflexive tenses use the auxiliary verb ''aver'' ("to have"), as in English,
German, and Spanish; instead of ''essar'' ("to be"), which would be normal in Italian. The past participle is invariable, unlike Italian:
★ Italian: ''(Tu) ti sei lavato'' (lit. "(You) yourself are washed").
★ Venetian: ''(Ti) te te à/ga/ghè lavà'' (lit. "(You) you yourself have washed").
★ Italian: ''(Loro) si sono svegliati'' (lit. "(They) themselves are awakened").
★ Venetian: ''(Luri) i se ga/à svejà'' (lit. "(They) they themselves have awakened").
Continuing action
Another peculiarity of the language is the use of the phrase '''drìo (a)''', literally "behind to" but also "'''busy doing, engaged in...occupied with...'''", to indicate continuing action:
★ Italian: ''Mio padre sta parlando'' ("My father is speaking").
★ Venetian: ''Mé pare 'l e drìo parlàr'' (lit. "My father he is busy speaking").
Indeed the word ''drio=busy/engaged'' also appears in other sentences:
★ Venetian: '' So' drio i mistieri'' lit. means "I am busy doing the housework" (=I'm doing it)
★ Venetian: ''Vo drio i mistieri'' lit. means "I go busy with the housework" (=I'm going to do it)
★ Venetian: ''Mé pare l'è in leto drio dormir'' lit. means "My father is in bed, busy sleeping" (=My father is sleeping in bed)
Another progressive form uses the construction "essar là che" (lit. "to be there that"):
★ Venetian: ''Me pàre 'l è là che 'l parla'' (lit. "My father he is there that he speaks").
The use of progressive tenses is more pervasive than in Italian; E.g.
★ English: "He wouldn't possibly have been speaking to you".
★ Venetian: ''No 'l sarìa mìa stat/stà drìo parlarte'' (lit. "Not-he would possibly have been behind to speak-to-you").
That construction does not occur in Italian: ''
★ Non sarebbe mica stato parlandoti'' is not syntactically valid.
Subordinate clauses
Subordinate clauses have double introduction ("whom that", "when that", "which that", "how that"), as in
Old English:
★ Italian: ''So di chi parli'' ("(I) know about whom (you) speak").
★ Venetian: ''So de chi che te parla'' (lit. "(I) know about whom that you-speak").
Spelling systems
Traditional system
Venetian does not have an
official writing system, but it is traditionally written using the
Latin alphabet — sometimes with the addition of a couple of letters and/or diacritics for the sounds that do not exist in
Italian, such as ''ç/zh'' for or (recently) ''ł'' for the "soft" ''l''. Otherwise, the traditional spelling rules are mostly those of Italian, except that ''x'' represents , as in
English "zero".
As in Italian, the letter ''s'' between vowels usually represents , so one must write ''ss'' in those contexts to represent a voiceless : ''basa'' for ("he/she kisses"), ''bassa'' for ("low"). Also, because of the numerous differences in pronunciation relative to Italian, the grave and acute accents are liberally used to mark both stress and vowel quality:
:''à'' , ''á'' , ''è'' , ''é'' , ''ò'' , ''ó'' , ''ù''
Venetian allows the
consonant cluster (not present in Italian), which is usually written ''s-c'' or ''s'c'' before ''i'' or ''e'', and ''s-ci'' or ''s'ci'' before other vowels. Examples include ''s-ciarir'' (Italian ''schiarire'', "to clear up"), ''s-cèt'' (''schietto'', "plain clear"), and ''s-ciòp'' (''schioppo'', "gun"). The hyphen or apostrople is used because the combination ''sc''(''i'') is conventionally used for sound, as in Italian spelling; e.g. ''scèmo'' (''scemo'', "stupid"); whereas ''sc'' before ''a'', ''o'' and ''u'' represents : ''scàtoa'' (''scatola'', "box"), ''scóndar'' (''nascondere'', "to hide"), ''scusàr'' (''scusare'', "to forgive").
However, the traditional spelling is subject to many historical, regional, and even personal variations. In particular, the letter ''z'' has been used to represent different sounds in different written traditions. In Venice and
Vicenza, for example, the phonemes and are written ''z'' and ''x'', respectively (''el pianze'' = "he cries", ''el xe'' = "he is"); whereas other traditions have used ''ç'' and ''z'' (''el piançe'' and ''el ze'').
Proposed systems
Recently there have been attempts to standardize and simplify the script, e.g. by using ''x'' for [z] and a single ''s'' for [s]; then one would write ''baxa'' for ['baza] ("she kisses") and ''basa'' for ['basa] ("low"). However, in spite of their theoretical advantages, these proposals have not been very successful outside of academic circles, because of regional variations in pronunciation and incompatibility with existing literature.
The Venetian speakers of
Chipilo use a system based on Spanish orthography, even though it does not contain letters for [j] and [θ]. The American linguist Carolyn McKay proposed a writing system for that variant, based entirely on the
Italian alphabet. However, the system was not very popular.
Sample texts
Ruzante returning from war
The following sample, in the old dialect of Padua, comes from a play by Ruzante (Angelo Beolco), titled ''
Parlamento de Ruzante che iera vegnú de campo'' ("Dialogue of Ruzante who came from the battlefield", 1529). The character, a peasant returning home from the war, is expressing to his friend Menato his relief at being still alive:
|
''Orbéntena, el no serae mal''
''star in campo per sto robare,''
''se 'l no foesse che el se ha pur''
''de gran paure. Càncaro ala roba!''
''A' son chialò mi, ala segura,''
''e squase che no a' no cherzo''
''esserghe gnan. [...]''
''Se mi mo' no foesse mi?''
''E che a foesse stò amazò in campo?''
''E che a foesse el me spirito?''
''Lo sarae ben bela.''
''No, càncaro, spiriti no magna.''
|
|
"Really, it would not be that bad
to be in the battlefield looting,
were it not that one gets also
big scares. Damn the loot!
I am right here, in safety,
and almost can't believe
I am. [...]
And if I were not me?
And if I had been killed in battle?
And if I were my ghost?
That would be just great.
No, damn, ghosts don't eat. "
|
Discorso de Perasto
The following sample is taken from the ''
Perasto Speech'' (''Discorso de Perasto''), given on
August 23,
1797 at
Perasto, by Venetian Captain
Giuseppe Viscovich, at the last lowering of the flag of the Venetian Republic (nicknamed the "Republic of
Saint Mark).
|
''Par trezentosetantasete ani''
''le nostre sostanse, el nostro sangue,''
''le nostre vite le xè sempre stàe''
''par Ti, S.Marco; e fedelisimi''
''senpre se gavemo reputà,''
''Ti co nu, nu co Ti,''
''e senpre co Ti sul mar''
''semo stài lustri e virtuosi.''
''Nisun co Ti ne gà visto scanpar,''
''nisun co Ti ne gà visto vinti e spaurosi!''
|
|
"For three hundred and seventy seven years
our goods, our blood
our lives have always been
for You, St. Mark; and very faithful
we have always though ourselves,
You with us, we with You,
And always with You on the sea
we have been illustrious and virtuous.
No one has seen us with You flee,
No one has seen us with You defeated and fearful!"
|
Francesco Artico
The following is a contemporary text by
Francesco Artico. The elderly narrator is recalling the church choir singers of his youth, who, needless to say, sang much better than those of today:
|
''Sti cantori vèci da na volta,''
''co i cioéa su le profezie,''
''in mezo al coro, davanti al restèl,''
''co'a ose i 'ndéa a cior volta''
''no so 'ndove e ghe voéa un bèl tóc''
''prima che i tornésse in qua''
''e che i rivésse in cao,''
''màssima se i jèra pareciàdi onti''
''co mezo litro de quel bon''
''tant par farse coràjo.''
|
|
"These old singers of the past,
when they picked up the Prophecies,
in the middle of the choir, in front of the gate,
with their voice they went off
who knows where, and it was a long time
before they came back
and landed on the ground,
especially if they had been previously "oiled"
with half a liter of the good one [wine]
just to make courage."
|
English words of Venetian origin
★
Arsenal,
ciao,
gazette,
ghetto,
gondola,
lagoon,
lido,
lazareth,
pantaloon,
zero (from Arabic)
★
Montenegro means "black mountain", as does the Montenegrin name for it (Crna Gora).
★
Negroponte means "black bridge".
★
Venezuela means ''little Venice''.
See also
★
Veronese Riddle, the first document in the Venetian and perhaps Italian language
References
★
Carolyn McKay, ''
Il dialetto veneto di Segusino e Chipilo''.
★
Francesco Artico, ''Tornén un pas indrìo!''
Brescia,
Paideia editrice, 1976.
★
Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), , , SIL International, 2005,
External links
★
Sitoveneto — information on the language, in Venetian, Italian, and English. Advocates a unified script. Venetian Keyboard Layout for Windows
★
Brief description
★
Tornén un pas indrìo! — samples of written and spoken Venetian by Francesco Artico
★
Text and audio of some works by Ruzante at
www.liberliber.it
★
Vèneto Arkìvio
★
Description of the Venetian dialect of Chipilo, in Spanish.
★
General Grammar of Veneto-language and its varieties
★
Review of a Goldoni play in Italian and Venetian performed in July 2005 at the
Lincoln Center, New York.
★
Quatro Ciàcoe — Venetian language magazine
★
''Perasto 1797'', a song by
Luciano Brunelli on the ''Discorso di Perasto'' (sample, MP3)
★
Text of the Perasto Speech
★
Webster's Venetian-English Dictionary
★
Dizsionario.orgDictionary of Venetian language and its varieties
★
Raixe Venete Venetian site in Venetian Language