The lowly @ is so much around the world

But the connection was lost in other languages,and more visual references to food,animals and body parts sprang up,many based on the at’s swirling shape. The symbol is still so unfamiliar that some newspaper and web systems can’t print it in this story.

“It’s sort of like a Rorschach test. The language would sort of see in the at sign something notable from the culture. What people are familiar with is just so varied,so all these crazy things came out of it,” said Karen Steffen Chung,an associate professor of linguistics,English and phonetics at National Taiwan University in Taipei.

The symbol is a strudel in Israel and a “rollmop” – for rolled pickled herring fillet – in Czech. It’s “sobachka” for doggie in Russian,was dubbed an “alpha curl” in Norway and sometimes goes by “kanelbulle,” a type of traditional cinnamon bun,in Swedish. Sweden can’t seem to make up its mind with the longest list of monikers,including elephant’s trunk,elephant’s ear,monkey’s tail,cat foot,cat’s tail and pretzel. Chung was so intrigued that she reached out to fellow linguists around the world in (what else) e-mail for their insights.

Among the things she discovered was a variety of terms in Serbian. The word “majmun” is one. It means monkey,appears to have been borrowed from Turkish and was used in “majmunski rep” (monkey tail) and “majmunsko-a” (monkey-ish a). The Serbs also invented “ludo-a” (crazy a) for the symbol none of us can escape.

Some countries have “official” terms for the “at.” The Swedish Language Board deemed it “snabel-a” (trunk-a),meaning “a” with an elephant’s trunk. Elsewhere,English prevails,including in Finland,South Africa and India.

The spin on “at” in Holland is English,too,but “apeklootje” (little monkey’s testicle) was once in play during the sign’s rapid rise to stardom. In Sri Lanka,the government agency responsible for promoting information technology on the island nation has no specific word for the symbol in Sinhala,referring to it simply as the “at symbol.” Local pronunciations of the English where other languages dominate include “et” for “a” in Serbian and “ah-te” (think Ted without the d) in mainland China. Mandarin Chinese hasn’t come up with a character for the revolutionary sign.

Japanese,known for borrowing from other languages,usually go for “atto maaku,” meaning the English “at,” while Greek turned the squiggle into a “little duck” and Hungarian a “little worm.” Arab speakers sometimes translate the English “at” to its equivalent,“fi,” though others see it as an “ear” instead when providing their e-mail addresses.