Venetian Language - Classification

Classification

Venetian is a Romance language and therefore descends from Vulgar Latin. Specifically, it belongs to the Italo-Romance group, most closely related to Istriot on the one hand and Tuscan-Italian on the other.

Venetian, despite the fact it is surrounded by Gallo-Italic languages, does not share traits with that group. Scholars stress Venetian's characteristic lack of Gallo-Italic traits (agallicità) or traits found further afield in Gallo-Romance (e.g., Occitan, French, Franco-Provençal) or Rhaeto-Romance (e.g., Friulian, Romansch). For example, Venetian did not undergo vowel rounding or nasalization, palatalize /kt/ and /ks/, or develop rising diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/, and it preserved final syllables, whereas, like in Italian, Venetian diphthongization occurs in historically open syllables.