Dingir ⟨𒀭⟩, usuallytransliterated DIĜIR,[1] (Sumerian pronunciation:[tiŋiɾ]) is aSumerian word for 'god' or 'goddess'. Itscuneiform sign is most commonly employed as thedeterminative for religious names and related concepts, in which case it is not pronounced and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript ⟨d⟩, e.g.dInanna.
The Sumerian cuneiform sign by itself was originally anideogram for the Sumerian wordan ('sky' or 'heaven');[2] its use was then extended to alogogram for the worddiĝir ('god' or 'goddess')[3] and the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheonAnu, and aphonogram for the syllable/an/.Akkadian cuneiform took over all these uses and added to them a logographic reading for the nativeilum and from that a syllabic reading of/il/. InHittite orthography, the syllabic value of the sign was again onlyan.
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. 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.
The Sumerian sign DIĜIR ⟨𒀭⟩ originated as a star-shaped ideogram indicating a god in general, or the Sumerian godAnu, the supreme father of the gods.Dingir also meant 'sky' or 'heaven', in contrast withki, which meant 'earth'. Itsemesal pronunciation wasdimer. (The use ofm instead ofĝ[ŋ] was a typical phonological feature in emesal dialect.)
The plural ofdiĝir can bediĝir-diĝir, among others.
TheAssyrian sign DIĜIR (ASH ⟨𒀸⟩ and MAŠ ⟨𒈦⟩, see could mean:
According to one interpretation, DINGIR could also refer to a priest or priestess although there are other Akkadian wordsēnu andēntu 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.[4]
The cuneiform sign was encoded inUnicode 5.0 under its name AN at the code point U+1202D𒀭.
.svg)
{{isbn}}: ignored ISBN errors (link).