The Long Journey of the @-sign: new (and old) Uses
We’re all familiar with the @-sign, pronounced “at-sign” in English, because of its use in e-mail addresses. In 1971, it was chosen by Ray Tomlinson, an American computer scientist, as the separator between the user and the domain (ie. user@domain.com) because it was an available character in the old 7-bit ASCII code set (American Code for Information Interchange), it was already included on a standard keyboard, and it was unlikely to ever appear in anybody’s real name. (At the time!)
@-sign Origins
Incredibly, the @-sign has medieval origins. It was used in medieval Latin manuscripts, and is believed to have originated as a ligature of the Latin word “ad”, which means “to” or “at”. In handwritten manuscripts from the 6th to 11th century, scribes often wrote “ad” as a single, flowing character to save time and space. Over time, the “a” was written with a curl that eventually enclosed the “d”, resembling what we now know as @. That said, the origins of the symbol are perhaps even older, and its true etymology is a matter of speculation.
However, the earliest recorded appearance of the @-sign is in a 1345 Bulgarian manuscript — used decoratively, in place of the capital letter alpha “Α” — possibly to represent the Latin word Amen, though its significance in this context remains unclear.
In the 16th century, the @-sign was used by merchants in England to signify “at the rate of” — as in “3 loaves @ 3p”, where 3p is the price of each loaf. Meanwhile, it was commonly used in Spanish and Portuguese trade documents, where @ stood for the arroba, a unit of weight (~25 pounds or 11.5 kg). In Venetian, the symbol was interpreted to mean amphora (anfora), a unit of weight and volume based upon the capacity of the standard amphora jar since the 6th century. It could also mean “adi” (Italian, addì, i.e. ‘on the day of’) as used on a health pass in Northern Italy in 1667.
The @ symbol made its way onto typewriter keyboards in the late 19th century, primarily for commercial applications, such as invoices and pricing.
Modern usage
Colloquial/slang
Increasingly today, the @-sign can be seen as a “cool” replacement for the word “at”. It came up recently in a technical document we were translating from Spanish as “3 kg @ 20 ºC”. But this is not the traditional meaning, and it seems pointless as an abbreviation either for the English “at” or the Spanish “a”, both of which are quite short already. So (unless instructed) when translating we would change it back to “at” or the target language equivalent. But maybe we will see more of this usage…
Online use
The use of the @-sign has exploded online! On social media platforms it signifies identity — @ precedes all user names — and is used to tag or mention people, and to reply to a specific poster on a thread. It is also used by programmers: in Python decorators (e.g., @staticmethod) and in SQL for variables (e.g., @userId), as well as a variety of other programming contexts, too numerous to mention here!
Gender Neutrality in Spanish
In Spanish, where many words end in “-o” when in the masculine gender and end “-a” in the feminine, the @-sign is sometimes used as a gender-neutral substitute for the default (some might say patriarchal) “o” ending. For example, the word amigos can represent male friends, or a mixed group, or a group where the genders are not known. Proponents of gender-inclusive language would replace it with amig@s in these latter two cases, and use amigos only when the group referred to is all-male, and amigas only when the group is all female. However, currently the Real Academia Española disapproves of this usage.
How do you say @?
The @-sign has a huge variety of translations in other languages. In Spain, it is still called an arroba. In other languages it’s called a “worm” (Hungarian: kukac), a “monkey’s tail” (Dutch: apenstaartje), a “snail” (Italian: chiocciola), and an “Elephant’s trunk” (Swedish: snabel-a), etc. Look here for a more an extensive list.
Final thoughts
In 2010, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York added the @ symbol to its architecture and design collection — calling it a “humble yet powerful design” with “extraordinary simplicity and grace.” They noted, that no one owns it, yet it’s essential to global communication. What a journey! From a humble ligature created by medieval monks to save space… the @-sign has become a universal symbol of digital identity.