But if that's really the case, then why hasn't Perl way of denoting the basic kind of variable with a starting symbol been copied in other languages? My guess

But if that's really the case, then why hasn't Perl way of denoting the basic kind of variable with a starting symbol been copied in other languages? My guess is because most languages don't do that, so people are used to variables not having a symbol denoting their basic type. It largely comes down to what sort of syntax people are accustomed to.