While many of the later inscriptions clearly appear to be written in Cisalpine Gaulish, some, including all of the older ones, are said to be in an indigenous language distinct from Gaulish and known as Lepontic. Until the publication of Lejeune 1971, this Lepontic language was regarded as a pre-Celtic language, possibly related to Ligurian (Whatmough 1933, Pisani 1964). Following Lejeune 1971, the consensus view became that Lepontic should be classified as a Celtic language, albeit possibly as divergent as Celtiberian, and in any case quite distinct from Cisalpine Gaulish (Lejeune 1971, Kruta 1991, Stifter 2008). Some have gone further, considering Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish essentially one and the same (Eska 1998). However, an analysis of the geographic distribution of the inscriptions shows that the Cisalpine Gaulish inscriptions are later and from an area to the south of the earlier (Lepontic) inscriptions, with which they display significant differences as well as similarities.