thumb|250x250px|The dingir sign worshiped by two figures on a cylinder seal from [[Mitanni, 16th–14th century BC]] Dingir ⟨⟩, usually transliterated DIĜIR, () is a Sumerian word for 'god' or 'goddess'. Its cuneiform sign is most commonly employed as the determinative for religious names and related concepts, in which case it is not pronounced and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript ⟨d⟩, e.g.
Article
7 sectionsContents
- Cuneiform sign
- Sumerian
- Assyrian
- Encoding
- See also
- Notes
- References
thumb|250x250px|The dingir sign worshiped by two figures on a cylinder seal from [[Mitanni, 16th–14th century BC]] Dingir ⟨⟩, usually transliterated DIĜIR, () is a Sumerian word for 'god' or 'goddess'. Its cuneiform sign is most commonly employed as the determinative for religious names and related concepts, in which case it is not pronounced and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript ⟨d⟩, e.g.
The Sumerian cuneiform sign by itself was originally an ideogram for the Sumerian word an ('sky' or 'heaven'); its use was then extended to a logogram for the word ('god' or 'goddess') and the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon Anu, and a phonogram for the syllable . Akkadian cuneiform took over all these uses and added to them a logographic 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.