Dialect and Language

We received the following email from a concerned CIAO user.

CIAO Webpage: correction suggested

From: [name deleted]
Date: Tue Aug 07 2001 - 11:44:24 EDT

To whom it may concern:

I read in your CIAO Web page (http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/) that CIAO is:

    from "s'sciavo", "I am your servant" in Venetian dialect

True, but I would like to point out that the Venetian is a language in its own right, not a dialect. The fact that the Republic of Venice has become in recent times part of Italy does not mean that its ancient language should also be downgraded to a dialect, which linguistically speaking is not.

Sorry for being so pedantic but we are very proud of our culture.

The rest of the site is top quality, well done.

Sincerely,
[signature deleted]