Some scholars believe the @ symbol dates back to the sixth century, when scribes simplified the Latin word ad (at) by exaggerating the upstroke of the letter d and curving it over the a. Others believe that the symbol had its genesis in sixteenth-century Venetian trade as an abbreviation for amphora, a standard-size terra-cotta vessel employed by merchants that became a unit of measure.
Since the nineteenth century, @ has appeared on standard typewriter and computer keyboards as the "commercial a," used, until fairly recently, almost exclusively by accountants to mean "at the rate of."
In 1967, Tomlinson joined the technology company Bolt Beranek and Newman, where in 1971 he created the world's first e-mail system for the United States government's Advanced Research Projects Agency Networks (ARPAnet), adopting @ as a stand-in for the long and convoluted programming language indicating a message's destination. This was a design decision of extraordinary elegance and economy re-purposing an existing, available, and underutilized symbol to adapt the standard keyboard to a revolutionary new technology.
The sign function in keeping with its origins: in computer language, @ designates a relationship between two entities, establishing a link based on objective and measurable rules.
The sign is now part of everyday life all over the world, demonstrated by the affectionate names it has in different cultures.
Germans called it "Klammeraffe" which means "spidermonkey" because of the curling tail.
Poles and South Africans call @ "monkey's tail," Chinese see a little mouse, and Italians and French a snail.
The Finnish know it as the "miukumauku," the "sign of the meow," because it resembles a curled-up sleeping cat.
In Sweden, it's referred to as trunk a. Español/castellano is named, "arroba."
Ray Tomlinson, a rare gem who pioneered the first email program the entire world is enjoying till date departed this earth on March 5, 2016.
>> Source: [Ray Tomlinson. "@" 1971. The Museum of Modern Art, New York]
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