The language

An important factor, is the means by which popular and mountain culture is expressed: the dialect.
The dialect of Canale, like the dialects of the whole Biois valley, even though influenced by Venetian elements (in fact the province of Belluno belonged to the Most Serene Republic of Venice from the 15th century to 1797) and nowadays unfortunately partly italianized, maintains most part of the lexis and the structure of the Dolomite Ladin. This fact has aroused the interest of many glottologists among whom Giovanni Battista Pellegrini, author of numerous essays on the Agordino dialects or scholars such as G.B. Rossi, author of the dictionary on Ladin and Ladin-Venetian dialects of Agordino, published in 2008 in a second edition.
It is interesting to know that in the sixties Edoardo Luciani, John Paul I’ s brother, wrote a pithy collection of local legends in Ladin-Venetian dialect. Later on, in 2001, they were transcribed into Italian by Loris Serafini next to the original text (the booklet is available at the Office Pro Loco in Canale d’Agordo).