Niçard (Classical orthography), Nissart/Niçart (Mistralian orthography, IPA: [niˈsaʀt]), Niçois (French, IPA: [ni.swa]), or Nizzardo (Italian, IPA: [nitˈtsardo]) is considered a distinct subdialect of the Occitan language (Provençal dialect) spoken in the city of Nice (Niçard: Niça/Nissa) and in the historical County of Nice (since 1860 the main part of the current French département of Alpes-Maritimes). In addition to Monégasque, Niçard is also spoken by some in Monaco.

Most residents of Nice and its region no longer speak Niçard, and those who do are bilingual in French. Nonetheless, today there is a developing revival of the use of the language. Some local television news is presented in Niçard (with French subtitles) and street signs in the old town of Nice are written in the dialect as well as in French. The Niçard song Nissa La Bella is often regarded as the "anthem" of Nice.

Niçard is written using two forms:

An Italian orthography also existed but was abandoned when Nice joined the French empire in 1861 (but was reinstated briefly in 1942/3 when Italy occupied and administered the city).

Example of Nissart and similarity with Italian, according to Barberis:

Standard Occitan recognises regional differences. It has been written that Niçard has kept some of the oldest forms of Occitan, other dialects (such as Provençal) having been more "frenchified" by their history.

Giuseppe Garibaldi, born in Nice in 1807, defined his "Nizzardo" as an Italian dialect with some influences from Occitan and French, and for this reason promoted the union of Nice to the Kingdom of Italy. Nice in fact, had been part of the County of Savoy (then Duchy of Savoy and finally Kingdom of Sardinia) since 1388, and was given to France in exchange for the help lended in the second independence war against Austria in 1860. Italian Giulio Vignoli wrote in his book about the "Nizzardo Italian" population that, after Garibaldi's failed attempt in 1871 (Vespri Nizzardi), 11,000 of his supporters (nearly 1/3 of the population of Nice in the 1870s) were forced to move to Italy from Nice and were substituted by the French government with people from nearby Occitan areas. The revolts began after the elections in 1871, in which the pro-Italian party received 26,534 votes out of 29,428. The French government decided to send 10'000 men to end the rebellion, to close the Italian journals and to imprison many of the pro-Italian demonstrators; this changed the characteristic of Nissart, which started to have many loanwords from Occitan (a language that is now predominant in the Nissart dialect).^[2]

Even today some scholars (like the German Werner Forner, the French Jean-Philippe Dalbera and the Italian Giulia Petracco Sicardi) agree that Niçard has some characteristics (phonetical, lexical and morphological) that are typical of the western Ligurian language.^[3]

The French scholar Jean-Philippe Dalbera (in Bernard Cerquiglini's report) pinpoints in his Les langues de France^[4] the actual existence of a Ligurian dialect, called Royasque, in the Roya Valley (near Tende), in the westernmost part of the County of Nice. Royasque, which is a Ligurian variety, should not be confused with Niçard.

However most experts in Romance linguistics see Niçard as a variety of Occitan. Statements saying that Niçard is a Ligurian or Italian dialect^[5] are not supported by these experts (see especially Dalbera 1984).^[6] Indeed, French scholar Bernard Cerquiglini wrote in his book on the languages of France about the actual existence of a Ligurian minority in Tende, Roquebrune and Menton, a remnant of a bigger medieval "Ligurian" area that included Nice and most of the coastal County of Nice.