Vèneto Gets Its Due

Venetian (Vèneto in Venetian and Veneto in Italian), a Romance language spoken mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, finally has its day in the sun. The Times Online, in Venetian Spoken Here, points out that "Given the importance of Venetian throughout Venice's history and in the present everyday life of the city, it is surprising that no continuous account of Venetian from its origins to the present has before been written in any language." That is, until the recent publication of "A Linguistic History of Venice," by Ronnie Ferguson, deemed "...essential reading not only for historians of Venice, but also those interested in the development of Romance languages in general."

The review also notes that Ferguson’s book coincides with several new local publications, including Malio Cortelazzo’s Dizionario veneziano della lingua e della cultura popolare nel XVI secolo (Venetian Dictionary of the Language and Popular Culture of the Sixteenth Century) and Gianfranco Siega’s Par modo de dir (So to Speak), a compendium of Venetian idioms and their origins.

Maybe now the Venetian language will be recognized for more than just being the origin of the term ciao.