Editing Venetian language (section)

=== Consonants ===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
|+ Venetian consonant phonemes
|-
!colspan=2|
! [[Labial consonant|Labial]]
! [[Dental consonant|Dental]]
! [[Alveolar consonant|Alveolar]]
! [[Postalveolar consonant|Post-alv.]]<br />/[[Palatal consonant|Palatal]]
! [[Velar consonant|Velar]]
|-
!colspan=2| [[Nasal consonant|Nasal]]
| {{IPA link|m}}
|
| {{IPA link|n}}
|{{IPA link|ɲ}}
|{{IPA link|ŋ}}
|-
!rowspan=2| [[Stop consonant|Plosive]]/<br />[[Affricate consonant|Affricate]]
! <small>[[voicelessness|voiceless]]</small>
| {{IPA link|p}}
| {{IPA link|t̪|t}}
|({{IPA link|t͡s}})
|{{IPA link|t͡ʃ}}
| {{IPA link|k}}
|-
! <small>[[voice (phonetics)|voiced]]</small>
| {{IPA link|b}}
| {{IPA link|d̪|d}}
|({{IPA link|d͡z}})
|{{IPA link|d͡ʒ}}
| {{IPA link|ɡ}}
|-
! rowspan="2" | [[fricative consonant|Fricative]]
! <small>[[voicelessness|voiceless]]</small>
|{{IPA link|f}}
|({{IPA link|θ}})
|{{IPA link|s}}
|  ||
|-
! <small>[[voice (phonetics)|voiced]]</small>
|{{IPA link|v}}
|({{IPA link|ð}})
|{{IPA link|z}}
| ||
|-
! colspan="2" |[[Tap consonant|Tap]]
|
|
|{{IPA link|ɾ}}
|
|
|-
! colspan="2" | [[Approximant consonant|Approximant]]
|{{IPA link|w}}
| || {{IPA link|l}}  ||{{IPA link|j}}
|({{IPA link|e̯}})
|}

Some dialects of Venetian have certain sounds not present in Italian, such as the interdental voiceless fricative {{IPAblink|θ}}, often spelled with {{angle bracket|ç}}, {{angle bracket|z}}, {{angle bracket|zh}}, or {{angle bracket|ž}}, and similar to [[English language|English]] ''th'' in ''thing'' and ''thought''. This sound occurs, for example, in {{lang|vec|çéna}} ("supper", also written {{lang|vec|zhena, žena}}), which is pronounced the same as Castilian Spanish {{lang|es|cena}} (which has the same meaning). The voiceless interdental fricative occurs in Bellunese, north-Trevisan, and in some Central Venetian rural areas around Padua, Vicenza and the mouth of the [[Po (river)|river Po]].

Because the pronunciation variant {{IPAblink|θ}} is more typical of older speakers and speakers living outside of major cities, it has come to be socially stigmatized, and most speakers now use {{IPAblink|s}} or {{IPAblink|ts}} instead of {{IPAblink|θ}}. In those dialects with the pronunciation {{IPAblink|s}}, the sound has fallen together with ordinary {{angle bracket|s}}, and so it is not uncommon to simply write {{angle bracket|s}} (or {{angle bracket|ss}} between vowels) instead of {{angle bracket|ç}} or {{angle bracket|zh}} (such as {{lang|vec|sena}}).

Similarly some dialects of Venetian also have a voiced interdental fricative {{IPAblink|ð}}, often written {{angle bracket|z}} (as in {{lang|vec|el pianze}} 'he cries'); but in most dialects this sound is now pronounced either as {{IPAblink|dz}} (Italian ''voiced-Z''), or more typically as {{IPAblink|z}} (Italian ''voiced-S'', written {{angle bracket|x}}, as in {{lang|vec|el pianxe}}); in a few dialects the sound appears as {{IPAblink|d}} and may therefore be written instead with the letter {{angle bracket|d}}, as in {{lang|vec|el piande}}.

Some varieties of Venetian also distinguish an ordinary {{IPAblink|l}} vs. a weakened or [[lenition|lenited]] ("evanescent") {{angle bracket|l}}, which in some orthographic norms is indicated with the letter {{angle bracket|[[ł]]}} or {{angle bracket|[[ƚ]]}};<ref>[[Unicode]]: {{unichar|023D|Latin capital letter l with bar}} and {{unichar|019A|Latin small letter l with bar}}</ref> in more conservative dialects, however, {{angle bracket|l}} and {{angle bracket|ł}} are merged as ordinary {{IPAblink|l}}. 
In those dialects that have both types, the precise phonetic realization of ⟨ł⟩ depends both on its phonological environment and on the dialect of the speaker. In Venice and its mainland as well as in most of central Veneto (excluding the peripheral provinces of Verona, Belluno and some islands of the lagoon) the realization is a non-syllabic {{IPA|[e̯]}}{{sfn|Zamboni|1975|pp=13–14, 38}} (usually described as nearly like an "e" and so often spelled as {{angle bracket|e}}), when {{angle bracket|ł}} is adjacent (only) to back vowels ({{angle bracket|a o u}}), vs. a null realization when {{angle bracket|ł}} is adjacent to a front vowel ({{angle bracket|i e}}).

In dialects further inland {{angle bracket|ł}} may be realized as a partially vocalised {{angle bracket|l}}. Thus, for example, {{lang|vec|góndoła}} 'gondola' may sound like {{lang|vec|góndoea}} {{IPA|vec|ˈɡoŋdoe̯a|}}, {{lang|vec|góndola}} {{IPA|vec|ˈɡoŋdola|}}, or {{lang|vec|góndoa}} {{IPA|vec|ˈɡoŋdoa|}}. In dialects having a null realization of intervocalic {{angle bracket|ł}}, although pairs of words such as {{lang|vec|scóła}}, "school" and {{lang|vec|scóa}}, "broom" are [[homophone|homophonous]] (both being pronounced {{IPA|vec|ˈskoa|}}), they are still distinguished orthographically.

Venetian, like Spanish, does not have the [[gemination|geminate consonants]] characteristic of standard Italian, Tuscan, Neapolitan and other languages of southern Italy; thus Italian {{lang|it|fette}} ("slices"), {{lang|it|palla}} ("ball") and {{lang|it|penna}} ("pen") correspond to {{lang|vec|féte}}, {{lang|vec|bała}}, and {{lang|vec|péna}} in Venetian. The masculine singular noun ending, corresponding to ''-o''/''-e'' in Italian, is often unpronounced in Venetian after continuants, particularly in rural varieties: Italian {{lang|it|pieno}} ("full") corresponds to Venetian {{lang|vec|pien}}, Italian {{lang|it|altare}} to Venetian {{lang|vec|altar}}. The extent to which final vowels are deleted varies by dialect: the central–southern varieties delete vowels only after {{IPAslink|n}}, whereas the northern variety deletes vowels also after dental stops and velars; the eastern and western varieties are in between these two extremes.

The velar nasal {{IPAblink|ŋ}} (the final sound in English "song") occurs frequently in Venetian. A word-final {{IPAslink|n}} is always velarized, which is especially obvious in the pronunciation of many local Venetian surnames that end in {{angle bracket|n}}, such as ''Mari'''n''''' {{IPA|vec|maˈɾiŋ|}} and ''Mani'''n''''' {{IPA|vec|maˈniŋ|}}, as well as in common Venetian words such as {{lang|vec|ma'''n'''}} ({{IPA|vec|ˈmaŋ|}} "hand"), {{lang|vec|piro'''n'''}} ({{IPA|vec|piˈɾoŋ|}} "fork"). Moreover, Venetian always uses {{IPAblink|ŋ}} in consonant clusters that start with a nasal, whereas Italian only uses {{IPAblink|ŋ}} before velar stops: e.g. {{IPA|vec|kaŋˈtaɾ|}} "to sing", {{IPA|vec|iŋˈvɛɾno|}} "winter", {{IPA|vec|ˈoŋzaɾ|}} "to anoint", {{IPA|vec|ɾaŋˈdʒaɾse|}} "to cope with".<ref name="zamboni">{{cite book |last=Zamboni |first=Alberto |editor1-last=Cortelazzo |editor1-first=Manlio |date=1975 |title=Veneto |trans-title=Venetian language |language=it |series=Profilo dei dialetti italiani |volume=5 |location=Pisa |publisher=Pacini |page=12 |quote={{lang|it|italic=unset|b) n&nbsp;a&nbsp;s&nbsp;a&nbsp;l&nbsp;i: esistono, come nello 'standard', 3 fonemi, /m/, /n/, /ń/, immediatamente identificabili da /''mása''/ 'troppo' ~ /''nása''/ 'nasca'; /''manáse''/ 'manacce' ~ /''mańáse''/ 'mangiasse', ecc., come, rispettivamente, bilabiale, apicodentale, palatale; per quanto riguarda gli allòfoni e la loro distribuzione, è da notare [''ṅ''] dorsovelare, cfr. [''áṅka''] 'anche', e, regolarmente in posizione finale: [''parọ́ṅ''] 'padrone', [''britoíṅ''] 'temperino': come questa, è caratteristica v&nbsp;e&nbsp;n&nbsp;e&nbsp;t&nbsp;a la realizzazione velare anche davanti a cons. d'altro tipo, cfr. [''kaṅtár''], it. [''kantáre'']; [''iṅvę́rno''], it. [''iɱvę́rno'']; [''ọ́ṅʃar''] 'ungere', [''raṅǧárse''], it. [''arrańǧársi''], ecc. }}}}</ref>

Speakers of Italian generally lack this sound and usually substitute a dental {{IPAblink|n}} for final Venetian {{IPAblink|ŋ}}, changing for example {{IPA|vec|maˈniŋ|}} to {{IPA|it|maˈnin|}} and {{IPA|vec|maˈɾiŋ|}} to {{IPA|it|maˈrin|}}.