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"[caption id=&amp;quot;&amp;quot; align=&amp;quot;alignnone&amp;quot; width=&amp;quot;218&amp;quot; caption=&amp;quot;Photo by Horia Varlan&amp;quot;][/caption]There is a whole chapter in 'Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet' dedicated on how the @ sign got its place in your email addresses. Ray Tomlinson is credited with the introduction of this use in 1972. The book is a great read for anyone working with the Internet.\r\n\r\nBut where did this sign come from? What was it used for before we had email? I never really thought about it.\r\n\r\nThe @ symbol is an &amp;quot;amphora&amp;quot;. In English, it is also called an &amp;quot;at&amp;quot; sign or a &amp;quot;commercial at.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nOne theory of the evolution of the &amp;quot;at&amp;quot; sign\r\n\r\nThe actual origin of the symbol is uncertain. We do know that it was used by monks who were making copies of books before the printing press. These monks looked for ways to reduce the number of  strokes per word for common words. The word &amp;quot;at&amp;quot; became a single stroke of the pen as @ instead of three for 'at'.\r\n\r\nThe @ symbol was also used as an abbreviation for &amp;quot;amphora&amp;quot;, the unit of measurement used to determine the amount held by the large terra cotta jars that were used to ship grain, spices and wine.\r\n\r\nGiorgio Stabile, an Italian scholar, discovered this use of the @ symbol in a letter written in 1536 by a Florentine trader named Francesco Lapi. It seems likely that some industrious trader saw the @ symbol in a book transcribed by monks using the symbol and appropriated it for use as the amphora abbreviation. This would also explain why it became common to use the symbol in relation to quantities of something.\r\n\r\nWant to learn more (yes, there is a lot more!) then check out the Answers.com page or download the free &amp;quot;The @ Book&amp;quot;.\r\n\r\nThe original @ letter. Written in 1536 by a Florentine trader named Francesco Lapi:\r\n\r\n\r\nHere is a list of how it is pronounced in different languages (copied from Answers.com):\r\nIn Basque it is called a bildua (&amp;quot;rounded a&amp;quot;)\r\nIn Belarusian it's called &amp;quot;\u0441\u044C\u043B\u0456\u043C\u0430\u043A&amp;quot; (&amp;quot;helix&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;snail&amp;quot;)\r\nIn Bulgarian it is called \u043A\u043B\u044C\u043E\u043C\u0431\u0430 (&amp;quot;klyomba&amp;quot;, means nothing else) or \u043C\u0430\u0439\u043C\u0443\u043D\u0441\u043A\u043E \u0430 (majmunsko a &amp;quot;monkey A&amp;quot;).\r\nIn Catalan it is called arrova or ensa\u00EFmada, the roll brioche typical from Majorca.\r\nIn Chinese\r\no In mainland China it is quan a (\u5708a), meaning &amp;quot;circular a&amp;quot; or hua a (\u82B1a, lacy a).\r\no In Taiwan it is xiao laoshu (\u5C0F\u8001\u9F20), meaning &amp;quot;little mouse&amp;quot;, or laoshu hao (\u8001\u9F20\u865F, &amp;quot;mouse sign&amp;quot;).\r\nIn Croatian it is informally called manki, coming from the local pronunciation of monkey. Curiously, the Croatian word for monkey, majmun, is not used to denote the at sign. This leads many Croatian speakers to believe that the English term for at sign is monkey causing them to misuse the word when communicating in English.\r\nIn Czech and Slovak it is called zavin\u00E1\u010D (rollmops).\r\nIn Danish it is snabel-a (&amp;quot;(elephant's) trunk-a&amp;quot;).\r\nIn Dutch it is called apenstaartje (&amp;quot;little monkey-tail&amp;quot;).\r\nIn Esperanto it is called \u0109e-signo (&amp;quot;at&amp;quot; - for the e-mail use, with an address pronounced zamenhof \u0109e esperanto punkto org), po-signo (&amp;quot;each&amp;quot; -- refers only to the mathematical use) or heliko (&amp;quot;snail&amp;quot;).\r\nIn Faroese it is kurla (sounds &amp;quot;curly&amp;quot;), hj\u00E1 (&amp;quot;at&amp;quot;), tranta and sn\u00E1pila (&amp;quot;(elephant's) trunk-a&amp;quot;).\r\nIn Finnish it was originally called taksamerkki (&amp;quot;fee sign&amp;quot;) or yksikk\u00F6hinnan merkki (&amp;quot;unit price sign&amp;quot;), but these names are long obsolete and now rarely understood. Nowadays, it is officially \u00E4t-merkki, according to the national standardization institute SFS; frequently also spelled &amp;quot;at-merkki&amp;quot;. Other names include kissanh\u00E4nt\u00E4, (&amp;quot;cat's tail&amp;quot;) and miukumauku (&amp;quot;the miaow sign&amp;quot;).\r\nIn French it is arobase or arrobe or a commercial (though this is most commonly used in French-speaking Canada), and sometimes a dans le rond (a in the circle). Same origin as Spanish which could be derived from Arabic, ar-roub.\r\nIn German it sometimes used to be referred to as Klammeraffe (meaning &amp;quot;spider monkey&amp;quot;). Klammeraffe refers to the similarity of the @ to the tail of a monkey grabbing a branch. Lately, it is mostly called at just like in English\r\nIn Greek, it is most often referred to as papaki (\u03C0\u03B1\u03C0\u03AC\u03BA\u03B9), meaning &amp;quot;duckling,&amp;quot; due to the similarity it bears with comic character designs for ducks.\r\nIn Greenlandic Inuit language - it is called aajusaq meaning &amp;quot;a-like&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;something that looks like a&amp;quot;\r\nIn Hebrew it is colloquially known as shtrudel (\u05E9\u05D8\u05E8\u05D5\u05D3\u05DC). The normative term, invented by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, is krukhit (\u05DB\u05E8\u05D5\u05DB\u05D9\u05EA), which is a Hebrew word for strudel.\r\nIn Hungarian it is officially called kukac (&amp;quot;worm, mite, or maggot&amp;quot;).\r\nIn Icelandic it is referred to as &amp;quot;at merki\u00F0 (the at-sign)&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;hj\u00E1&amp;quot; which is a direct translation of at.\r\nIn Indonesian it is et,a bundar, meaning &amp;quot;circle A&amp;quot;.\r\nIn Italian it is chiocciola (&amp;quot;snail&amp;quot;), sometimes at (pronounced more often /\u025Bt/, and rarely /at/, instead of /\u00E6t/) or ad.\r\nIn Japanese it is called attom\u0101ku (\u30A2\u30C3\u30C8\u30DE\u30FC\u30AF, &amp;quot;at mark&amp;quot;). The word is a wasei-eigo, which are Japanese vocabulary forged from the English language or Gairaigo foreign loan words in general. It is sometimes called naruto, because of Naruto whirlpool or food (kamaboko).\r\nIn Korean it is called golbaeng-i (\uACE8\uBC45\uC774; bai top shells), a dialectal form of daseulgi (\uB2E4\uC2AC\uAE30), a small freshwater snail with no tentacles.\r\nIn Latvian it is pronunced same as in English, but, since in Latvian [\u00E6] is written as &amp;quot;e&amp;quot; not &amp;quot;a&amp;quot; (as in English), it's sometimes written as et.\r\nIn Lithuanian it is eta (equivalent to English at but with Lithuanian ending)\r\nIn Luxembourgish it used to be called Afeschwanz (monkey-tail), but due to widespread use it is now pronounced 'at' like in English.\r\nIn Morse Code it is known as a &amp;quot;commat,&amp;quot; consisting of the Morse code for the &amp;quot;A&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;C&amp;quot; run together as one character: (.--.-.). This occurred in 2004 .\r\nIn Norwegian it is officially called kr\u00F8llalfa (&amp;quot;curly alpha&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;alpha twirl&amp;quot;). (The alternate alfakr\u00F8ll is also common.)\r\nIn Persian it is at (using the English pronunciation).\r\nIn Portuguese it is arroba, similar to Spanish.\r\nIn Polish it is officially called atka, but commonly ma\u0142pa (monkey) or ma\u0142pka (little monkey), or ba\u0142wanek (little snowman)\r\nIn Romanian it is Coad\u0103 de maimu\u0163\u0103 (monkey-tail) or &amp;quot;a-rond&amp;quot;\r\nIn Russian sobaka (\u0441\u043E\u0431\u0430\u043A\u0430) (dog)\r\nIn Serbian it is called \u043B\u0443\u0434\u043E \u0410 (ludo A crazy A) or \u043C\u0430\u0458\u043C\u0443\u043D (majmun monkey)\r\nIn Slovenian it is called afna (little monkey)\r\nIn Spanish it is called &amp;quot;arroba.&amp;quot; The symbol used to be used to indicate a unit of weight with the same name (1 arroba = 25 U. S. pounds).\r\nIn Spain, Portugal, Mexico, and Brazil it denotes a pre-metric unit of weight. It variates regionally being about 25 pounds, 11.502 kg, in most parts. The weight and the symbol are called arroba. (In Brazil, cattle is still priced by the arroba \u2014 now rounded to 15 kg). It was also used as units of volume for wine and oil.\r\nIn Swedish it is called snabel-a (&amp;quot;(elephant's) trunk-a&amp;quot;) or kanelbulle (cinnamon bun)\r\nIn Swiss German it is commonly called Affeschwanz (&amp;quot;monkey-tail&amp;quot;).\r\nIn Turkish it is et (using the English pronunciation). Also called as g\u00FCzel a (beautiful a), \u00F6zel a (special a), salyangoz (snail), ko\u00E7 (ram), kuyruklu a (a with tail) and \u00E7engelli a (a with hook).\r\nIn Ukrainian it is commonly called et (&amp;quot;at&amp;quot;), other names being ravlyk (\u0440\u0430\u0432\u043B\u0438\u043A) (snail), slymachok (\u0441\u043B\u0438\u043C\u0430\u0447\u043E\u043A) (little slug), vukho (\u0432\u0443\u0445\u043E) (ear) and pesyk (\u043F\u0435\u0441\u0438\u043A) (little dog).\r\nIn Vietnamese it is called a c\u00F2ng (bent a) in the North and a m\u00F3c (hooked a) in the South.\r\nIn Welsh it is sometimes known as a malwen or malwoden (a snail).\r\nWe first posted this story in November 2008."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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