Digenis.org

In the comments to my last post on Russian computer jargon, Connard asked why the @ symbol is usually refered to in Russian as собака (dog). I’ve always heard that it’s because the symbol looks like a curly canine tail, but curoisity got the best of me and I decided to see if the internet could give me any other answers.

Interestingly enough, even though most Russians call it собака these days, it wasn’t always known by that name. According to the Знатоки на Волге (scroll down to point #6), before the internet was around it was known as а коммерческое (commercial a) in literature, блямба (I hope a native Russian speaker can clear up this term, because neither Katzner nor Lingvo offer any insight) in the academic sphere, and as лягушка (frog) among engineers. Even in the early days of the internet this symbol was known by a different name in Russia; for a while it was called ухо (ear) and обезьянка (monkey, ape).

I’m not sure when it switched over to собака, but the internet offers plenty of theories on the origin of the new appellation:

• In the early days of computer games - before all the amazing, lifelike graphics of games like Doom and HalfLife - there was a little single-player dungeon game called NetHack. In the first version of the game, released in 1987, the graphics were quite simplistic and heroes in the game were represented by keyboard characters. A dog was represented by the @ symbol.
• There’s another (crazy) theory which claims the ’sobaka’ name comes from the fact that the English word ‘at’ sounds like the Tartar word for dog, and that a Russian, having realized this, decided to call the @ symbol ’sobaka’. This seems pretty far-fetched to me. As a matter of fact, a little online detective work shows that the Tartar word for dog is actually pronounced slightly different (more like [ejt]). Furthermore, the Tartar word for horse is pronounced [at], so if this theory’s line of thinking were true, why wouldn’t the symbol be called лошадь?
• This next one also seems an incredible stretch to me, but it was suggested at the Lingvo forum that in looking at the symbol @, two cyrillic letters can be seen: c and a, the first and last letters in sobaka/sobachka.

I suppose I buy the dog-tail explanation, if any. The animal association with @ seems to be present in many languages:

Afrikaans: aapstert (monkey-tail)
Bulgarian: Maimunka (monkey)

Cantonese: Gui (turtle)
Czech: zavináč (pickled herring)
Danish: snabel-a (elephant’s trunk) and grisehale (pig’s tail)
Dutch: apestaartje (little ape-tail) or slingeraap (swinging monkey)
Esperanto: heliko (snail)
Finnish: kissanhäntä (cat’s tail)
French: escargot (snail), though the word arobase is more commonly used

German: Affenschwanz (ape-tail) or Klammeraffe (spidermonkey)
Hebrew: shablul (snail)
Hungarian: kukac (worm, maggot)
Italian: chiocciola (snail)
Korean: dalphaengi (snail)
Mandarin: xiao lao-shu (small mouse)
Norwegian: grisehale (pig’s tail)
Polish: malpa (monkey), kotek(little cat) or ucho s’wini (pig’s ear)

Swedish: snabel-a (literally, a with an elephant trunk)
Thai: ai tua yiukyiu (worm)

Izvestiya Science asked its readers about @ and published a Freudian response it recieved, in which the author refers to the Cantonese word’s (gui, turtle) phallic nature, and tied it in with the possible (but still not as strong) vulgarity that собака can convey. It strays from the etymological perspective, but is still an interesting read.

If you want to read more about the @ sign, check out the following links:

Webopedia: The History of the @ Sign.
World Wide Words:
Where It’s At.

UPDATE (April 8, 2005): I’ve thought of another possible theory for the origin of the @ sign being called sobaka. Perphaps it’s a stretch, but if we’re talking about what the sign resembles, then couldn’t it just as easily have come from the Russian word for trigger (собачка)?