Northern Italian (traditional name in Romance linguistics), Padanian (recent name) or Cisalpine (rare name) is a linguistic set with different definitions. Gallo-Italian is the name used by Ethnologue. It can be viewed:

• as a group of Italian dialects, according to traditional Romance linguistics (see Pellegrini 1975, Rohlfs 1975).
• as a Romance language, according to linguist Geoffrey Hull (1982), who prefers the name "Padanian language".
• as a sub-family composed of several regional Romance languages.

Traditionally spoken in Northern Italy, Southern Switzerland, San Marino and Monaco, most Northern Italian varieties have given way to Standard Italian and its regional variations. The area where Northern Italian dialects are spoken roughly corresponds to Northern Italy (sometimes called Padania). The vast majority of current speakers are bilingual in Standard Italian.

The southern linguistic frontier, between Northern Italian and Italian proper, is called La Spezia-Rimini line.

Languages of Italy by groups (Northern Italian in gold/ green).

Subdivisions