Just one more time about that lovely @ sign

[Michal Lisecki]

Dear all,

A couple of days ago we had quite a lot of comments on the ways we
refer to the @ sign. Yesterday I have incidentally run into a short
and interesting summary on that. It tells something more than just
how to name @ in English. It gives several other names in different
languages that people gave to the "cute" sign.
As the text is very short I have decided to include that below. At
the same time, being a Pole I was surprised to read that Polish
people refer sometimes to the @ sign as "ogon" (a tail). Although I
have heard dozens of other expressions referring to @ I don't think
that calling it "ogon" is but an occasional usage.
You should also know that there has been a long discussion thread on
the Linguist list and you can find it all there in the archives @
http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/7/7-968.html

The URL for the article is:
http://home.bluemarble.net/~langmin/@name.htm
--------------------

by William Z. Shetter

"We Call that Symbol `@' ", She Said
What do you think she called it?

 If she was speaking English, she probably said "at". But have you
ever stopped a moment to wonder what people in other countries call
it? In just the last few years, use of it has spread quickly all
around the globe, making it necessary for people everywhere to find
something to call it.

Fortunately someone has put a lot of effort into asking speakers of a
great many languages what they call `@' (see the link at the end of
this Miniature), and it is fascinating to see what colorful
inventiveness the naming of this symbol has called forth. When you
read the following discussion, remember that `@' has become a daily
fact of life for many of us so quickly that most languages (not
excepting English!) haven't had time yet to settle on one single
name. That's why some languages appear two or three times.

You'll hardly be surprised to hear that some languages simply use the
English word `at', usually with some modification in pronunciation.
For instance Arabic, Chinese, Farsi (Iran), Finnish, Greek,
Indonesian, Japanese, Hebrew, Norwegian. Occasionally `at' gets
translated as an equivalent preposition: Arabic fi, Greek sto,
Romanian la.

Other languages continue the name of the `@' symbol that used to be
standard on typewriters, and call it by some local variation of
`commercial a': Estonian, French, Italian, Lithuanian, Russian. In
French and Norwegian people sometimes call it `curled a', and in
Serbian it is commonly ludo a `crazy a'.

Many centuries ago, speakers of Spanish and Portuguese borrowed from
the Arabs the word for a 25-lb. weight measure and turned it into
arroba, abbreviated `@'. Today this same symbol when used for e-mail
is still called by the same name, as is Catalan arrova and French
arobase.

We first get a real multi-cultural experience, though, when we see
how many languages use a name expressing something about how people
see the SHAPE of the symbol. In some countries, it's seen as
resembling an ear, so in Arabic it's called uthun, in German Ohr, and
in Turkish kulak. Speakers of Swedish prefer to see an elephant's
ear, and call it elefantora. In Turkish they see the flower gül
`rose'. Other countries see food in it, especially some form of
popular coiled pastry: Catalan ensaimada, Hebrew shtrudel, Swedish
kanelbulle, Russian plyushka. Czech/Slovak zavinac seems to be the
only example of its reminding some people of a coiled herring.

But most people around the world see an ANIMAL in it, and here it's
amusing to note which animals are seen, and tempting to speculate as
to why. Let's look at a few. Turkish is the only language in which
people call it a horse, not because anybody thinks it looks like one
but simply because of the coincidence that the animal is called at in
their language. In Russian it's often called sobachka `little dog'.
In Greek it's sometimes papaki `duckling'.

It is that curled tail on the @ that strikes people around the world,
though it reminds them of many different animals. Danish and Swedish
snabel-a see an elephant's trunk. The symbol's coiled look reminds
people in many countries of a snail's shell. French has escargot,
Italian chiocciola, Korean dalphaengi, Indonesian keong, and Hebrew
shablul, all meaning `snail'. Hungarian kukac (that's `-ats') sees a
worm.

But most people seem to be seeing the curled TAIL of some animal,
such as Chinese and Finnish that see a mouse. When you start thinking
of animals, that symbol looks something like a curly pig's tail,
which makes it a bit odd that only Norwegian grisehale actually calls
it that. The Finns and the Swedes seem to be the only people who see
a cat curled up with its tail around it. Swedish has kattsvans and
Finnish has at least three names for this idea: kissanhäntä `cat
tail', miaumerkki `meow sign' and miukumauku, something like
`meow-meow'.

But all these are put in the shade by the popularity of the MONKEY.
Look at it: can't you see a monkey sitting on a branch? In some
languages it's simply called a `monkey': Polish malpa, Russian
obezyana, Serbian majmun and Slovenian afna. In German it's sometimes
the specific species Klammeraffe `clinging monkey'. More often it's
`monkey tail', as Dutch apestaartje, Finnish apinanhäntä, German
Affenschwanz, Serbian majmunski rep, Swedish apsvans. In Bulgarian
they call it majmunsko a `monkey a'. In Polish, sometimes they
considerately call it just ogon `tail', leaving you to choose which
animal it belongs to.

Cultures - especially neighbors of each other - have always borrowed
artefacts back and forth, and usually either the name is borrowed
along with it, some existing word is broadened, or a new one is
invented. In the past this slow assimilation and `naturalization' of
words often took centuries, but by comparison the `@' symbol has been
borrowed around the whole world at lightning speed. So we have a
front-row seat to watch name-giving while it is still going on, with
no time at all for the normal slow cultural diffusion.
tafn mike
_______________________________________________________________
Michal Lisecki, Ph.D candidate <magura at ares.fils.us.edu.pl>
Institute of Slavonic Philology, University of Silesia (Poland)
http://www.cz.top.pl/~magura <magura at cz.top.pl> finger 4 my PGP