Dingir is the Sumerian for "deity". It is written as an ideogram in the cuneiform script. The sign at the same time expressed the syllable an, because it was in particular the ideogram for An, the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon. In Akkadian cuneiform, the sign could be both an ideogram for "deity" and a syllabogram for il, derived acrophonically from the Semitic for "god", ʾil-. In Hittite orthography, the syllabic value of the sign was again an. The Sumerian language ( EME.GIR15 native tongue) of ancient Sumer was spoken in Southern Mesopotamia from at least the 4th millennium BCE. Sumerian was replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language around 1800 BCE, but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until... Look up deity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A Chinese character. ...   The cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. ... In Sumerian mythology and later for Assyrians and Babylonians, Anu (see also An) was a sky-god, the god of heaven, lord of constellations, king of gods, spirits and demons, and dwelt in the highest heavenly regions. ... In Islamic context, an Ilah is the concept of a deity, lord or god and does not necessarily refer to Allah. ...

The cuneiform sign is encoded in Unicode (as of version 5.0) at U+1202D 𒀭. Because of technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ...

Sumerian

The Sumerian sign 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 in contrast with Ki which meant earth. The cuneiform version of the Sumerian sign is shown at the left. Sumer (or Å umer, Sumerian ki-en-gir[1], Egyptian Sanhar[2]) was one of the early civilizations of the Ancient Near East, located in the southern part of Mesopotamia (southeastern Iraq) from the time of the earliest records in the mid 4th millennium BC until the rise of Babylonia in... In Sumerian mythology and later for Assyrians and Babylonians, Anu (see also An) was a sky-god, the god of heaven, lord of constellations, king of gods, spirits and demons, and dwelt in the highest heavenly regions. ... In Sumerian mythology, Ninhursag (or Ki) was the earth and mother-goddess. ...

The plural of dingir was dingir dingir.

Akkadian

The Akkadian sign dingir could mean: Akkadian language city of Akkad or Agad Akkadian Empire Sargon of Akkad the Amarna letters and Amarna Letters EA 296(Yahtiru) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

• the Akkadian stem "il-" meaning "god" or "goddess"
• the god Anum
• the Akkadian word šamu meaning "sky"
• the syllable il
  • a preposition meaning "at" or "to"
• a determinative indicating that the following word was the name of a god

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.^[1] In Islamic context, an Ilah is the concept of a deity, lord or god and does not necessarily refer to Allah. ...

Some Akkadian myths, which read like the participants were gods, are less confusing if the dingir sign is translated "divine" rather than "deity" or "god". For example in Gilgamesh XI, lines 189,192:

"Then dingir-kabtu went aboard the boat... Standing between us, he touched our foreheads to bless us." This is clearly an act of a priest, not a god.

See Also

Look up 𒀭 in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Sumerian language
• Akkadian language

Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wiktionary is a multilingual, Web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in over 150 languages. ... The Sumerian language ( EME.GIR15 native tongue) of ancient Sumer was spoken in Southern Mesopotamia from at least the 4th millennium BCE. Sumerian was replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language around 1800 BCE, but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until... Akkadian (lišānum akkadītum) was a Semitic language (part of the greater Afro-Asiatic language family) spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, particularly by the Assyrians and Babylonians. ...

References

1. ^ Margaret Whitney Green, Eridu in Sumerian Literature, PhD dissertation, University of Chicago (1975), p. 224.