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What is the root meaning /etymology of the Sumerian word for God, Dingir?

Rakovsky

Active Member
Here is a diagram of the development of Sumer's sign Dingir. The Akkadian symbols that succeeded it are on the upper right.
SHAMASHANUNNAKI2DINGIREVOLUTION.jpg


The sign in Sumerian cuneiform (DIĜIR) by itself represents the Sumerian word an (“sky” or “heaven”), the ideogram for An or the word diĝir (“god”), the supreme deity of the Sumerian pantheon.
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 original association of “divinity” is thus with “bright” or “shining” hierophanies in the sky.
https://aratta.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/the-sumerian-pantheon-an-dingir-nineresh/


Archibald Henry Sayce says in Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion (1887):
The Accadian word for "god" was dimer, which appears as dingir, from an older dingira, in the southern dialect of Sumer. ...dimer or dingir is really the creator, formed by the suffix r or ra, from the verb dingi or dime, to create. A simpler form of dimer is dime, a general name for the divine hierarchy. By the side of dime, dim, stood gime, gim, with the same meaning; and from this verb came the Sumerian name of Istar, Gingira. Istar is said to have been the mother of mankind in the story of the Deluge, and as Gula, the "great" goddess, she is addressed in a prayer as the mother who has borne the men with the black heads.

Anastas Shuke, an Albanian, tries to reach its etymology relying on what seems to me to be very loose associations (too loose), particularly with Sumerian and Albanian, concluding it means heavens, father, or wising/knowing:
http://www.academia.edu/7882856/On_the_origins_and_continuity_of_the_Sumerian_term_AN_dingir_-_God

Wiktionary lists these meanings for Dingir:
  • AN "heaven"
  • DINGIR "deity"
    • as a determiner abbreviated to D, e.g. DEN.LÍL=Enlil
  • AN.BAR "iron"
  • NANNA=AN.NA "tin"
  • KUR AN.TA "upland"
  • AN KI "heaven and earth"
  • AN GE6 "eclipse (of a celestial body)"

A Bulgarian website proposes what does not look like a reliable etymology, although I do think that Tien/Tengri/Dingir are related. But it looks needless how he pulls Ra and Nak into this:
T’ien (à Tan) is the chinese/uigur/kirgiz word for “sky”. Ra is, despite egyptian roots, also an indoiranian word for “god”. Nak was the common word for “human” of the different tribes from turk, aryan, altaic and uralic, but also from more ancient heritage like sumerian – of course this term differed etymologically due to ethnological facts – living in the wide regions and valleys between the Altai and Pamir mountains in middle asia known as Kirgizstan and Tadjikistan today.

So we can concluse that Tangra is actually the abroveTanNakRa and its other terminology differs from tribe to tribe: Dengir (sumerian), Danguz (baltic), Tengri, Dingir, Tingir, Dangar (turkic, altaic) and Tangra (bulgarian).
http://svarga-bulletin.blogspot.com/2009/05/tangra.html

Out of all of these, Sayce's idea that its origin is related to Dime and creating sounds the most educated, although I realize that it has added meanings of heaven, shining, a star (the sign) and god.
 

ANas60

New Member
The Shuke approach doesn't seem to be a "too loose" association. As it may come out from what Shuke says, the word dingir (know satiated) is pretty near dim-me-er = dimer (know well) in Albanian language, thus putting a relation between dingir and dimer mentioned in Sayce's, employing again a verb di "know" (or knowledge) which itself is the genesis of any creation, as one must know before to create. Also, Shuke says that me means above, thus dime may mean "above knowledge", near "creation knowledge."
 
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