Editing Venetian language (section)

==Classification==
[[File:Romance-lg-classification-en.svg|thumb|500x500px|Chart of Romance languages based on structural and comparative criteria.]]
Venetian is a Romance language and thus descends from [[Vulgar Latin]]. Its classification has always been controversial: According to Tagliavini, for example, it is one of the [[Italo-Dalmatian languages]] and most closely related to [[Istriot language|Istriot]] on the one hand and [[Tuscan dialect|Tuscan]]–[[Italian language|Italian]] on the other.<ref name="Tagliavini 1948"/> Some authors include it among the [[Gallo-Italic languages]],<ref name="CAT">{{Cite book |last=Haller |first=Hermann W. |year=1999 |title=The other Italy: the literary canon in dialect |publisher=[[University of Toronto Press]]}}</ref> and according to others, it is not related to either one.<ref name=Renzi>{{cite book |last=Renzi |first=Lorenzo |year=1994 |title=Nuova introduzione alla filologia romanza |location=Bologna |publisher=Il Mulino |page=176 |quote={{lang|it|I dialetti settentrionali formano un blocco abbastanza compatto con molti tratti comuni che li accostano, oltre che tra loro, qualche volta anche alla parlate cosiddette ladine e alle lingue galloromanze ... Alcuni fenomeni morfologici innovativi sono pure abbastanza largamente comuni, come la doppia serie pronominale soggetto (non sempre in tutte le persone) ... Ma più spesso il veneto si distacca dal gruppo, lasciando così da una parte tutti gli altri dialetti, detti gallo-italici.}} }}</ref> Although both Ethnologue and Glottolog group Venetian into the Gallo-Italic languages,<ref name="Ethnologue vec" /><ref name="glot1" /> the linguists [[Giacomo Devoto]] and Francesco Avolio and the [[Treccani]] encyclopedia reject the Gallo-Italic classification.<ref name="Devoto 1972 30"/><ref name="Avolio 2009 46"/><ref name="Dialetti veneti, Treccani.it"/>

Although the language region is surrounded by [[Gallo-Italic languages]], Venetian does not share some traits with these immediate neighbors. Some scholars stress Venetian's characteristic lack of Gallo-Italic traits ({{lang|vec|agallicità}})<ref>Alberto Zamboni (1988:522)</ref> or traits found further afield in [[Gallo-Romance languages]] (e.g. French, [[Franco-Provençal language|Franco-Provençal]])<ref>Giovan Battista Pellegrini (1976:425)</ref> or the [[Rhaeto-Romance languages]] (e.g. [[Friulian language|Friulian]], [[Romansh language|Romansh]]). For example, Venetian did not undergo vowel rounding or nasalization, palatalize {{IPA|/kt/}} and {{IPA|/ks/}}, or develop rising diphthongs {{IPA|/ei/}} and {{IPA|/ou/}}, and it preserved final syllables, whereas, as in [[Italian language|Italian]], Venetian diphthongization occurs in historically open syllables. On the other hand, Venetian does share many other traits with its surrounding Gallo-Italic languages, like interrogative [[clitic]]s, mandatory unstressed [[subject pronoun]]s (with some exceptions), the "to be behind to" verbal construction to express the [[Continuous and progressive aspects|continuous aspect]] ("El ze drio manjar" = He is eating, lit. he is behind to eat) and the absence of the [[Italian conjugation#Absolute past (Il passato remoto)|absolute past tense]] as well as of [[Gemination|geminated consonants]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Belloni |first=Silvano |date=1991 |title=Grammatica veneta |url=http://www.linguaveneta.net/linguaveneta/wp-content/plugins/pdfjs-viewer-shortcode/pdfjs/web/viewer.php?file=/linguaveneta/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Grammatica-Veneta-di-S.Belloni.pdf&download=false&print=false&openfile=false |access-date=2020-08-24 |website=www.linguaveneta.net|trans-title=Venetian Grammar|language=Italian}}</ref>{{pages needed|date=October 2023}} In addition, Venetian has some unique traits which are shared by neither Gallo-Italic, nor Italo-Dalmatian languages, such as the use of the [[Impersonal passive voice|impersonal passive]] forms and the use of the auxiliary verb "to have" for the [[Reflexive verb|reflexive voice]] (both traits shared with [[German language|German]]).<ref>{{cite book |last=Brunelli |first=Michele |year=2007 |title=Manual Gramaticałe Xenerałe de ła Łéngua Vèneta e łe só varianti |location=Basan / Bassano del Grappa |pages=29, 34}}</ref>

Modern Venetian is not a close relative of the [[extinct language|extinct]] [[Venetic language]] spoken in Veneto before Roman expansion, although both are [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]], and Venetic may have been an [[Italic languages|Italic]] language, like [[Latin]], the ancestor of Venetian and most other [[languages of Italy]]. The ancient [[Adriatic Veneti|Veneti]] gave their name to the city and region, which is why the modern language has a similar name, while their language may have also left a few traces in modern Venetian as a [[substrata (linguistics)|substrate]].