Nowadays, the
@ character symbolizes the
Internet. Many
web-related businesses have included this character, or variants of it (eg.
IBM's
e-commerce) in their name or
logo. But way before the email age this
glyph was very successful because it's a simple and graphically attractive non-
alphanumeric character convenient for
abbreviations.
The
etymology of this character is not clear and opinion is divided on the subject : this discussion often sets off
flame wars on bulletin boards. As evidence tends to prove it, the character was used in many different
civilizations that didn't have any relation. This is probably why things get so mixed up.
The most accepted answer to the question of @'s origin is that it's a contraction of the Latin proposition 'ad', written in cursive. This maybe explains why it is used in many countries as a synonym for "at" : 2 books @ $1, 3 years @ 3.5%...
-WWWWWW-
-MMWWWWWWWWW-
-WWMM- -WWMMW-
BMWW- -WMM-
jj -MM-
-MM-
-MM-
-MW
WM-
-MW
-WWWMM -- WM-
-WMMWWMM- WW -MW
-MMW- MM -MW WW
WM- MM- WM- WW
WW MMW -MW WW
WW -MMW WM- WW
WM- WMMM- WW WW
-MMW- -MW-MMBMW -MW
-WMMWMM- -WBMMW- -WMM-
-WWW- -WMMWMMW-
-WWW-
But the glyph is also the symbol of an old Spanish weight unit called
Arroba. Because
Spain's history is closely related to
Arab history, it is alleged that this name comes from the Arabic word "ar'roub" which means 1/4, and an arroba is 25 (Spanish) pounds. Many circled characters, mainly numbers (1, 5, 6), are found in eastern countries from
India to
Borneo. In
Sri Lanka, the number 6 is written upside down, which is pretty close to the character
@. Let us not forget that the Arabs introduced numbers in Europe.
In fact, @ has been used for various units in many civilizations : Spanish Arroba weight unit, French XVIII Aune length unit, Italian XVI Amphora capacity unit...
It was more and more used by traders, and because traders were the first to massively use typewriters, the character @ was eventually introduced on the keyboards.
This character is non-alphabetic, rather easy to draw and attractive which explains the countless different names it has been given (from the French snail to the Czech rollmop). In 1972, Ray Tomlinson chose it as a separator for email addresses because it was unlikely to be used in user names or machine names, and gave its modern usage.
The ISO 10646 name for the @ glyph is 'AROBE'. It is character ANSI, ASCII and UNICODE #64.
fr.lettres.langue.française
babel.alis.com/glossaire/arrobe.fr.htm
ISO 1064