In the United States, @ is usually spoken as “at,” though it’s official name is “commercial at.” The at symbol, so ubiquitous today because of its use in email addresses, originated in commerce. The precise etymology of the sign is not known, but variations have been used in retail and accounting for centuries, where it’s used to communicate cost per item. Now, it’s not uncommon to see grocery store receipts with the at symbol used to communicate exactly the same thing: 2.45lbs Fuji Apples @ $1.99lb = $4.88 means that the unit price for Fujis is $1.99 per pound.
Since 1972 the at sign has been working double duty. Ray Tomlinson is credited with using @ to indicate the location of a user on a specific host, and the format of the email address was born. This created a new problem for non-English speakers, though. Since the word “at” and the symbol @ match so nicely in our language, English speakers may take for granted the fact that in other languages, the name for such a funny little symbol may not be so obvious.
In our continual quest to educate and inform, here is Spiegato’s own collection of how @ translates to English from a variety of the world’s languages.
Language
Word
Translation
IMAGE
Croatian
manki
monkey
Czech
zavinac
“rollmops,” a way of serving pickled herring
Danish
snabel
elephant’s trunk
Dutch
apenstaartje
little monkey tail
Finnish
miau, or miaumau
“meow marks”
German
klammeraffe
spider monkey
Greek
papaki
duckling
Hebrew
krukhit
strudel
Hungarian
kukac
worm, mite, or maggot
Italian
chioccoiola
snail
Mandarin Chinese–Taiwan
xiao lao shu
little mouse
Norwegian
grisehale
pig’s tail
Russian
sobaka
dog
Swedish
kanelbulle
cinnamon bun
Thai
ai tua yiukyiu
the wiggling worm-like character
Turkish
kulak
ear