venetian language 941
- Classifications of Venetian
Chronological Classification
the chronological span of a language rarely falls into coherent periods
with neat boundaries. the criteria for operating what are always partly
arbitrary intersections in its continuum can be biased, more or less,
toward “internal” factors (significant changes in its structures) or external,
historical ones. Particularly problematic to divide into significant time-
tranches is an uncodified and unstandardized variety such as Venetian,
which has undergone significant contact-pressure over time from a con-
tiguous standard language and whose origins, evolution, and present posi-
tion have only lately been the object of comprehensive research. in such
circumstances, history of the language and linguistic history must go hand
in hand, structured by a periodization that is sensitive to sociolinguistic
pressures. On this basis i adopt here, as i have elsewhere,36 the following
classification:
early Venetian [eV] c.1200–c.1500
Middle Venetian [MidV] c.1500–c.1800
Modern Venetian [ModV] c.1800–c.1950
Contemporary Venetian [CV] c.1950–the presenteach of these boundaries marks a watershed where societal or cultural
events with linguistic repercussions altered the status and/or structure of
Venetian. Conventionally, 1200 represents the appearance of venexian in
written texts. the quite fundamental processes which restructured early
Venetian in the 13th and 14th centuries (see Section 4, below) could, by
linguistic criteria alone, have justified a demarcation between “Old Vene-
tian” and eV at around 1350. instead, i opted for c.1500 as the next division.
this date stands for the moment when tuscan was achieving consensus
status among italy’s elites and interfering with unmarked written Vene-
tian of all registers. the grammatical codification of tuscan → italian that
would introduce writing-speech “bilingualism” to Venice was also immi-
nent at that point. the year 1800 coincides approximately with a funda-
mental political and linguistic turning point in the fortunes of Venice and
Venetian, consolidated and accelerated half a century later by unification
with italy. it marks the end of Venetian political and institutional inde-
pendence, the napoleonic and austrian interludes with the awakening of
36 Ferguson, A Linguistic History of Venice, pp. 45–47.