venetian language 933
eng. casino [1789] ←italianised version of Ven. casin “gaming house, pri-
vate salon.” eng. contraband [1529] ←Ven. contrabando “contraband, ille-
gal or prohibited traffic, smuggled goods,” with bando meaning “official
decree.” eng. gazette [1605] ←Ven. gazeta “small Venetian coin first issued
in the 16th century,” of unknown etymology. Possibly from the Venetian
expression gazeta de la novità “a pennyworth of news” referring to the cost
of the first european news-sheets, published in Venice in the 16th cen-
tury. eng. ghetto [1611] ←Ven. g(h)eto “enclosed Jewish quarter of Venice.”
the Jews of Venice were first confined to a specific quarter in the sestier
of Cannaregio in 1516. the district was so called from a foundry (gheto)
once sited on this insula of the city. eng. gondola [1549] ←Ven. gondola.
Of uncertain origin, but possibly from greek κώντουρος “short-tailed craft.”
eng. lagoon [1612] ←Ven. laguna < lacunam “pool of (stagnant) water.”
eng. lotto [1778] ←Ven. lo(t)to “lotto, lottery” from germanic *lot- “destiny,
fate.” eng. quarantine [1609] ←Ven. quarantena ~ quarantina “40 day isola-
tion period.” eng. regatta [1652] ←Ven. regata, of uncertain etymology.18
Knowledge of Venetian and of its history also has a wider conceptual
importance for historians inasmuch as language mediates reality and gives
expression to mentalities. in so doing it forms complex webs of interac-
tion with the society and culture that forge, and are forged by, it.19 the
highly specific nature and evolution of the Venetian polity and its sense of
identity between 1400 and 1797 are reflected, and can be fruitfully studied,
in its language attitudes and practice. the following questions are of par-
ticular significance for present and future research: Venice’s indifference
to language policy, with a conspicuous failure to define a de iure language
for itself at any stage in its independent history; the city’s vernacular-Latin
bilingualism in writing stretching into the 16th century; the subsequent
negotiations between Venetian and tuscan/italian at the written then at
the spoken levels, leading to an enduring writing-speaking “bilingualism”;
and, finally, the gradual establishment in the modern period of a unique
Venetian-italian diglossia20 involving, in recent decades, an alternating
and mixing of the two varieties. these issues, too, are surveyed below.
18 the dates of earliest english attestations are from Charles talbut Onions, ed., The
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford, 1974).
19 See alberto Varvaro, Identità linguistiche e letterarie nell’Europa romanza (Rome,
2004).
20 at its most basic, “diglossia” refers to a bilingualism of unequals. it applies in situa-
tions where one of two spoken varieties has prestige and is appropriate in a wide range of
domains, while the other is more restricted in its usage and generally has lower prestige.
By and large, this describes the language-dialect situation in most of italy. Contemporary