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The mystery over the @ sign
你知道@符號的由來嗎?
導讀:在網絡時代，"@"絕對是一個高頻使用符號。但是，你知道誰發明了它嗎?你知道這個符號的發展歷程嗎?
The @ character is the symbol of the internet age, crucial for emails and social networking. But no-one really knows where it came from, writes Claire Bates.
@符號是網絡時代的象徵，對電子郵件和社交網絡至關重要，但沒人真正了解它的出處，克萊爾貝茨寫道。
The "at sign" was once an obscure symbol known only to book-keepers. That changed thanks to Ray Tomlinson, the man widely regarded as the inventor of the email.
這個"@"曾經只是薄記員使用的模糊不清的符號。多虧了電子郵件的發明者-雷湯姆林森，這種狀況才得以改變。
He plucked it from his keyboard in 1971 to go between the user name and destination address when sending a message between two computers in his office. Tomlinson chose @ because it was then rarely used in computing, so wouldn’t confuse early programs or operating systems. In a happy coincidence, the English name of the symbol was already "at".
1971年，他從鍵盤上借用這個符號放在用戶名和目標地址之間，在辦公室的兩臺電腦上發送信息。湯姆林森之所以選擇@這個符號，是因為那時候這個符號在電腦語言中很少出現，不會攪亂原先的程序或作業系統。巧合的是，這個符號的英文名正是"at"。
"The @ symbol appeared on typewriters before the end of the 19th Century," says Keith Houston, author of Shady Characters: Secret Life of Punctuation. "It seemed to be a general symbol that meant to readers ’this is this many items at this price』. It didn’t have a use beyond this."
「19世紀末期前，打字機中出現了@符號，」《秘密字符：標點符號的秘密生活》的作者凱斯休斯敦說。「它似乎只是一個通用符號，對讀者來說意味著『這個價格有這麼多東西』。除此以外別無他用。」
As typewriters had it, so did the first proper keyboards for computers.
由於打字機有這個符號，首個用於電腦的鍵盤也加了這個符號。
"The @ symbol made it on to keyboards because it was a business tool and had a business use," says Houston.
「@符號繼續出現在鍵盤上，因為它作為商業工具有著商業用途。」休斯敦說。
Those business users understood it as a symbol to indicate unit price eg 12 batteries @ 1 pound each.
商人們把它看成表示單價的符號，如12節電池@每節1英鎊。
In 2000, the Italian academic Girogio Stabile observed that many nations use different words for the @ symbol that describe how it looks. In Turkish it means "rose", while in Norwegian it means "pig’s tail". In Greek it is "duckling", while in Hungarian it is "worm".
2000年，義大利學者希奧爾希奧斯塔比萊注意到，不同國家用不同的字來表示@符號，來描述它的樣子。在土耳其它意味著「玫瑰」;在挪威它的意思是「豬尾巴」;希臘語中，它是「鴨子」;而在匈牙利，它代表「蟲子」。
But Stabile noticed in French, Spanish and Portuguese, it referred to arobase or arroba - a unit of weight and volume. In Italian the name for the symbol was "amphora", referring to long-necked pottery storage jars that had been used since ancient times.
但斯塔比萊同時發現，在法語、西班牙語和葡萄牙語中，這個符號指的是阿羅瓦-重量和體積的計量單位。義大利語中這個符號是"amphora"，意思是長頸陶瓷儲物罐，從古代沿用至今。
Stabile discovered a letter sent from Seville to Rome in 1536, which discussed the arrival in Spain of three ships sailing from the New World. It stated that an amphora of wine was sold and "amphora" was replaced with the @ symbol as an abbreviation. Stabile concluded the @ symbol was a common medieval shorthand for units of measure in southern Europe, even if the precise units differed.
斯塔比萊發現了一封1536年從塞維亞寄到羅馬的信件，信中討論了從新大陸駛來西班牙的三艘船。裡面寫著「賣出了一amphora酒」，而「amphora」則用@符號簡寫。斯塔比萊得出結論：@符號是南歐一種古老的計量單位縮寫方法，儘管具體的單位各不相同。
Spanish journalist Jorge Romance then found an even earlier use. "I read about the 16th Century example of @ and remembered I had seen the symbol before when I was a history student at the University of Zaragoza. I went through my old papers and found customs records between Aragon and Castile in the 15th Century. It meant 』arroba』 as a weight measure, and in this instance one arroba of wheat."
接著西班牙記者豪爾赫羅曼塞發現了更早的用途。「我讀著16世紀關於@的例子，忽然記起來我在薩拉戈薩大學歷史系讀書時看過這個符號。我翻遍了以前的論文，找到了15世紀時位於亞拉貢和卡斯提爾之間的風俗記錄。它意思是『阿羅瓦』，重量單位，這種情況下意味著一阿羅瓦小麥。」
But the earliest yet discovered reference to the @ symbol is a religious one. It features in a 1345 Bulgarian translation of a Greek chronicle. Held today in the Vatican Apostolic Library, it features the @ symbol in place of the A in the word Amen. Why it was used in this context is a mystery.
但最早發現@的資料是關於宗教的。它在希臘編年史1345年版的保加利亞譯文中出現。這部書目前存於梵蒂岡圖書館，它用@符號代替「阿門」中的字母A。而為何如此使用卻仍然是個謎。
It seems fitting then that the first email to be sent with the @ symbol has also been lost to time. When Tomlinson sent the first message to tomlinson@bbn.tenexa, he didn’t realise what a game-changer it would be and so didn’t bother writing it down.
而首封用@符號發送的電子郵件隨著時間流逝而漸漸被人淡忘，也不足為怪。當湯姆林森向tomlinson@bbt.tenexa發送第一封郵件時，他並沒意識到這是怎樣一個具有改變意義的事情，所以並沒有把它記下來。
來源:BBC 官網
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