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The @ symbol, officially called “commercial at”, has been used for centuries in retailing and accounting to communicate cost per item. In 1972, it was used by Ray Tomlinson to create email addresses. In different languages, it has various translations, such as “monkey” in Croatian and “cinnamon roll” in Swedish.
In the United States, @ is usually pronounced as “at”, although its official name is “commercial at”. The at symbol, so ubiquitous today because of its use in email addresses, was born in commerce. The precise etymology of the sign is not known, but variations have been used for centuries in retailing and accounting, where it is used to communicate cost per item. Now, it’s not uncommon to see grocery store receipts with the at symbol used to convey exactly the same thing: 2.45 pounds of Fuji apples @ $1.99 pounds = $4.88 means the unit price for Fuji is $1.99 per pound.
Since 1972 the snail has had a double function. Ray Tomlinson is credited with using @ to indicate a user’s location on a specific host, and the email address format was born. However, this has created a new problem for non-English speakers. Since the word “at” and the @ symbol match so well in our language, English speakers may take for granted the fact that in other languages the name of such a fun little symbol might not be so obvious.
In our ongoing quest to educate and inform, here is wiseGEEK’s compilation of how @ translates into English from a variety of world languages.
Lingua
Word
Translation
IMAGE
Croatian
handles
monkey
Czech
at-sign
“rollmops”, a way of serving pickled herring
Danish
snail
elephant trunk
Dutch
at sign
little monkey tail
Finnish
meow oh meow
“meow marks”
Tedesco
clamp monkey
Monkey spider
greco
patch
duckling
Jewish
Krukhit
strudel
Hungarian
an insect
worm, I love the worm
Italian
wink
snail
Mandarin Chinese–Taiwan
xiao lao shu
little mouse
Norwegian
pig tail
pork tail
Russian
the dog
cane
Swedish
cinnamon roll
cinnamon bun
Thai
oh your yiukyiu
the wriggling worm-like character
turco
ear
ear
