''Dingir'' (, usually

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...

DIĜIR, ) is a Sumerian word for "

god In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

" or "

goddess A goddess is a female deity. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave. This includes themes of s ...

". Its

cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo- syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedg ...

sign is most commonly employed as the

determinative A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they ma ...

for religious names and related concepts, in which case it is not pronounced and is conventionally

as a superscript "d" as in e.g. ^d

Inanna Inanna, also sux, 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒀭𒈾, nin-an-na, label=none is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine justice, and political power. She was originally worshiped in Su ...

. The

sign by itself was originally an

ideogram An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek "idea" and "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarit ...

for the Sumerian word ''an'' ("sky" or "heaven");Hayes, 2000 its use was then extended to a

logogram In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced ''hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, as ...

for the word ''diĝir'' ("god" or "goddess")Edzard, 2003 and the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon ''An'', and a phonogram for the syllable .

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform, early writing system * Akkadian myt ...

took over all these uses and added to them a

logographic In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced '' hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, ...

reading for the native '' ilum'' and from that a syllabic reading of . In Hittite orthography, the syllabic value of the sign was again only ''an''. The concept of "divinity" in Sumerian is closely associated with the heavens, as is evident from the fact that the cuneiform sign doubles as the ideogram for "sky", and that its original shape is the picture of a star. It is also of note that the eight-pointed star was a chief symbol for the goddess Inanna. The original association of "divinity" is thus with "bright" or "shining" hierophanies in the sky.

Cuneiform sign

Sumerian

The Sumerian sign DIĜIR Cuneiform sumer dingir

originated as a star-shaped ideogram indicating a god in general, or the Sumerian god An, the supreme father of the gods. ''Dingir'' also meant sky or heaven in contrast with ''ki'' which meant earth. Its

emesal Sumerian is the language of ancient Sumer. It is one of the oldest attested languages, dating back to at least 3000 BC. It is accepted to be a local language isolate and to have been spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, in the area that is modern-da ...

pronunciation was ''dimer''. (The use of ''m'' instead of ''ĝ'' '' �' was a typical phonological feature in emesal dialect.) The plural of ''diĝir'' can be ''diĝir-diĝir'', among others. Cuneiform sumer dingir

Assyrian

The Assyrian sign DIĜIR (ASH 𒀸 and MAŠ 𒈦, see cuneiform sign AN) could mean: * the Akkadian nominal stem '' il-'' meaning "god" or "goddess", derived from the Semitic ' ʾil-'' * the god Anum (An) * the Akkadian word ''šamû'' meaning "sky" * the syllables ''an'' and ''il'' (from the Akkadian word god: An or Il, or from gods with these names) * a preposition meaning "at" or "to" * a

indicating that the following word is the name of a god According to one interpretation, DINGIR could also refer to a priest or priestess although there are other Akkadian words ''ēnu'' and ''ēntu'' that are also translated priest and priestess. For example, ''nin-dingir'' (lady divine) meant a priestess who received foodstuffs at the temple of Enki in the city of Eridu.Margaret Whitney Green, ''Eridu in Sumerian Literature'', PhD dissertation, University of Chicago (1975), p. 224.

Digital encoding

The cuneiform sign is encoded in

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

(as of version 5.0) under its name AN at U+1202D .

Notes

References