The jargon of the magnins

Sentences without a label are documented facts; the others are marked "probable" or "uncertain".

When they were far from home, the coppersmiths of the Val Soana spoke among themselves a language that outsiders could not understand. The fullest description among the sources read is Nigra's, in an appendix to a study of the valley's dialect published in the “Archivio glottologico italiano” of 1874-1878. This page gives the words as Nigra writes them, with his translations, and explains what a jargon (trade slang) is and why the magnins had one. Where Nigra does not explain a word, the page does not explain it. The words are transcribed without all of Nigra's diacritical marks.

Nigra and the Val Soana

In volume III of the “Archivio glottologico italiano”, of 1874-1878, Nigra publishes the “Fonetica del dialetto di Val-Soana”, with an appendix entitled “Il gergo dei Valsoanini”. He begins by counting the people. The census of 31 December 1871 gives 7582 inhabitants in the municipalities where the Valsoana dialect is spoken: Ingria, Ronco, Valprato, Campiglia, Ribordone and Frassinetto. But the census was taken when the men had emigrated: Nigra adds just under a thousand people and arrives at about 8,500.

The missing count is already a piece of history. Every year, as autumn approached, almost all the able-bodied men left the valley; they came back in spring to work as farmers and shepherds until the following autumn. Outside the valley, Nigra writes, the men of the Val Soana practise “the trades of the coppersmith, the silversmith and the metal founder”.

Nigra did not collect the words on his own. Most of the words and forms were supplied to him at Ronco, from 1861, by Giuseppe Giovando. Before him the jargon had already been written down: Biondelli, in the “Studj sulle lingue furbesche” (Milan 1846), had published the “Parabola del figliuol prodigo nel gergo dei calderaj di Valsoana”.

Sources: Nigra 1874, pp. 1, 2, 53, 60

Magnano, calderaio, magnin

The name of the trade changes with the writer. In the same volume of the “Archivio glottologico” Flechia notes that “magnano” in the dialects of northern Italy means “calderajo” and that in Piedmontese and Genoese one says “magnino”. Nigra speaks of “ramajo”, that is, someone who works copper. For Paviolo “magnin”, in Canavese usage, is anyone who works copper by hand, including founders, tilt-hammer men, sheet beaters and settled tinsmiths; in the wider usage of Piedmont the magnin is the itinerant one. The Park's press release and Cima call the valley's coppersmiths “ruga”, with the word from their jargon.

Sources: Nigra 1874, pp. 2, 175 (Flechia's note); Paviolo, p. 56; Parco Nazionale Gran Paradiso 2024, p. 2; Cima 2025a, p. 83

What a trade jargon is

In general, a jargon is the way of speaking of a closed group: a trade, pedlars, sometimes the underworld. It is not a whole language. It uses the grammar of the everyday language and changes above all the words, so that those who do not belong to the group cannot understand. The Italian tradition calls the jargon of vagabonds and wandering trades “furbesco”; French calls it “argot”.

Nigra states clearly what the jargon of the Valsoanini is for. When they are away from their villages, they speak among themselves a special jargon, so as not to be understood by outsiders. The jargon is used in the presence of outsiders and is partly used also by the inhabitants of the upper Orco valley.

Nigra divides the words into four groups: dialect words that have been altered; dialect words used in a figurative sense; words shared with furbesco, with argot or with other Romance languages; words of varied or obscure origin. The jargon, then, takes from the dialect of the valley, takes from other jargons and keeps words whose origin is unknown.

More recent studies add two things that Nigra does not say. The jargon is a men's language: women understand it but as a rule do not speak it. It shuts out the “maret”, the outsiders. Pasinato, quoted by Cima, describes it as built on the operations of copperwork.

Sources: Nigra 1874, pp. 2, 53; Cima 2025a, p. 145; Paviolo, p. 86

The words of the trade

The jargon names first of all the material and the tools. The words are given here as Nigra writes them, with his translations in quotation marks.

• copper: “rogi”, “la rossa”;
• the cauldron (paiolo): “bocart”, “il tingente”;
• tin: “corent”;
• charcoal: “nejro”;
• the small bellows: “bronca”; the large bellows: “bronca-gro”, “il soffia-grosso”;
• the anvil: “bepi”, “la beccuta”;
• the magnano: “ponci” or “tüjna”;
• the master: “broci” or “baudroc”; the mistress: “broci” or “baudroca”;
• the boy, the girl: “tri, tria”, literally “minuto, minuta”, or “armeri, armeria”.

For “ponci” Nigra suggests an origin: he traces it back to “puncta”, “punctare”. For the other words in this list the sources read do not report any explanation by Nigra beyond the translation.

The words for “boy” carry historical weight. Boys worked with the magnins: they began to travel with an adult at seven or even younger, to shout the street cry and work the bellows. Nigra, however, says nothing about their work; Paviolo and Cima speak of it. The jargon keeps the word, not the story of those who carried it.

Sources: Nigra 1874, pp. 57, 58, 60; Paviolo, p. 58; Cima 2025a, p. 143

The world seen through the jargon

The jargon is not only for work. It also has words for the sky and for cities. The sun is “lombart” and the moon “lombarda”. Here Nigra gives an explanation, cautiously: the sun is perhaps called Lombard because Lombardy lies to the east of the Val Soana, that is, on the side where the sun rises.

Turin is “Murc”, “il ricco”; Novara is “Neva”, “la nuova”. Turin and the Novara area were among the destinations of the magnins of Pont. Why these particular names, Nigra does not explain: the translations are his, the reasons are not given in the sources read.

Sources: Nigra 1874, pp. 57, 58; Bussi 2026, p. 29

After Nigra: Paviolo and the words that change

More than a century after Nigra, Paviolo collects a vocabulary for the Val Soana, Piantonetto and Vasario. Many words are the same, spelt differently; others are new. The master is “bròci” or “bodrac”, the apprentice “famàut” or “armèri”, the bellows “bronca”, the boy “tri”. The new words are water, “luha” or “piòrni”, work, “varcan”, man, “gòri”, the frying pan, “fòina”, the pot, “bocerda”, money, “berne”, the village, “palio”. The itinerants as a rule travelled in pairs: the master, “lo bròci”, and the boy, “lo famàut” or “lo tri”. The blower of the forge is “lo bronca”. In a photograph of 1919 a boy of 12 stirs up the fire, “ruff”, of the forge, “forgi”, with the bellows, which here is spelt “brunca”.

Paviolo also suggests an origin for “ruga”: it could come from the Valsoana “la ruge”, the red one, that is, copper. In Piedmontese ruga is an aromatic herb, and in the argot of the Turin underworld it means “pimp”; according to Ciravegna (1957) “il ruga” is the coppersmith-tinsmith and “la ruga” his jargon. Alongside it there is Nigra's “rogi”, “la rossa”: the sources read do not say whether the two words are the same.

The jargon was also used in everyday work. Tin was an alloy with lead; anyone who raised the share of lead to save money called it “giacu” in the jargon, so that the customer would not understand. The street cry was another matter: the boy shouted “magnin” or “magnan” and “Si stagnan le pignate e le padele”.

Finally, Paviolo links the jargon to a legend: the forger of Ronco, before being hanged, is said to have explained to his people where the gold was in such a way that only the men of the valley would understand. It is a legend: the sources read give neither a date nor a document for the origin of the jargon.

Sources: Paviolo, pp. 56, 57, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 85, 86, 87, 88; Cima 2025a, p. 78

For the class

Take the list of Nigra's words on this page, with his translations. Try to divide them into Nigra's four groups, remembering that he does not say which group each word belongs to: for “rogi”, “la rossa”, or “bronca-gro”, “il soffia-grosso”, the translation helps; for “corent” or “nejro” there is none. Then compare Nigra's words with Paviolo's, more than a century later: which stay the same, which change only in spelling, which disappear? Finally write, with the words of the two lists, a short sentence that a master might say to his boy in front of a customer; explain why the customer would not understand it. Remember that the sources do not report whole sentences from Nigra: yours is an exercise, not a reconstruction.

Sources: Nigra 1874, pp. 53, 57, 58; Paviolo, pp. 87, 88