Why do Windows environment variable names use a special escape character?

Question

I wonder whether history is why the symbol ^is used to exit the special characters <, >, |, &and ^in the names of environment variables in Windows instead of the symbol \, which is commonly used to exit the special characters.

Please note that I understand that there can be no reason for this, but I would be interested to hear if there is a reason.

Answer 1

'\' - , Unix- ( C, , C). , /.

Windows, , CP/M, "\" . ( : , . .) , , (!!), escape-.