East Semitic

Aphrodite (/ˌæfrəˈdaɪtiː/ , AF-rə-DY-tee) is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretised Roman counterpart Venus, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. Aphrodite's major symbols include seashells, myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans. The cult of Aphrodite was largely derived from that of the Phoenician goddess Astarte, a cognate of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar, whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna. Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens. Her main festival was the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated annually in midsummer. In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes, an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of sacred prostitution in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous.

A major goddess in the Greek pantheon, Aphrodite featured prominently in ancient Greek literature. According to many sources, like Homer's Iliad and Sappho's Ode to Aphrodite, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. In Hesiod's Theogony, however, Aphrodite is born off the coast of Cythera from the foam (ἀφρός, aphrós) produced by Uranus's genitals, which his son Cronus had severed and thrown into the sea. In his Symposium, Plato asserts that these two origins actually belong to separate entities; Aphrodite Urania (a transcendent "Heavenly" Aphrodite, who "partakes not of the female but only of the male", with Plato describing her as inspiring love between men, but having nothing to do with the love of women) and Aphrodite Pandemos (Aphrodite common to "all the people" who Plato described as "wanton", to contrast her with the virginal Aphrodite Urania, who did not engage in sexual acts at all. Pandemos inspired love between men and women, unlike her older counterpart). The epithet Aphrodite Areia (the "Warlike") reveals her contrasting nature in ancient Greek religion. Aphrodite had many other epithets, each emphasizing a different aspect of the same goddess or used by a different local cult. Thus she was also known as Cytherea (Lady of Cythera) and Cypris (Lady of Cyprus), because both locations claimed to be the place of her birth. Sappho's Ode to Aphrodite is one of the earliest poems dedicated to the goddess and survives from the Archaic period nearly complete.

Dilmun, or Telmun, (Sumerian: , later 𒉌𒌇(𒆠), NI.TUK = dilmun; Arabic: دلمون) was an ancient East Semitic–speaking civilization in Eastern Arabia mentioned from the 3rd millennium BC onwards, covering the transition from Prehistoric Arabia into the historic period. Based on contextual evidence, it was located in the Persian Gulf, on a trade route between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilisation, close to the sea and to artesian springs. Dilmun encompassed Bahrain, Kuwait, and eastern Saudi Arabia.

The great commercial and trading connections between Mesopotamia and Dilmun were strong and profound to the point where Dilmun was a central figure to the Sumerian creation myth. Dilmun was described in the saga of Enki and Ninhursag as pre-existing in paradisiacal state, where predators do not kill, pain and diseases are absent, and people do not get old.

Malik (Phoenician: 𐤌𐤋𐤊; Hebrew: מֶלֶךְ; Arabic: ملك; variously Romanized Mallik, Melik, Malka, Malek, Maleek, Malick, Mallick, Melekh) is the Semitic term translating to "king", recorded in East Semitic and Arabic, and as M-L-K in Northwest Semitic during the Late Bronze Age (e.g. Aramaic, Canaanite, Hebrew).

Although the early forms of the name were to be found among the pre-Arab and pre-Islamic Semitic speakers of the Levant, Canaan, and Mesopotamia, it has since been adopted in various other, mainly but not exclusively Islamized or Arabized non-Semitic Asian languages for their ruling princes and to render kings elsewhere.It is also sometimes used in derived meanings.

Shin-Lamedh-Mem is a triconsonantal root of many Semitic words (many of which are used as names). The root meaning translates to "whole, safe, intact, unharmed, to go free, without blemish". Its earliest known form is in the name of Shalim, the ancient god of dusk of Ugarit. Derived from this are meanings of "to be safe, secure, at peace", hence "well-being, health" and passively "to be secured, pacified, submitted".

• Central Semitic Š-L-M
  • Arabic: س-ل-م, S-L-M
    • Maltese: S-L-M
  • Imperial Aramaic: ܫ-ܠ-ܡ, Š-L-M
  • Canaanite: Š-L-M (cf. Shalem)
    • Hebrew: ש-ל-ם‎, Š-L-M (Paleo-Hebrew 𐤔-𐤋-𐤌; Samaritan Hebrew ࠔ-ࠋ-ࠌ)
• East Semitic S-L-M
• South Semitic "S-L-M"
  • Ge'ez: ሰ-ላ-ም, S-L-M

Arabic salām (سَلاَم), Maltese sliem, Hebrew šālōm (שָׁלוֹם‎), Ge'ez sälam (ሰላም), Syriac šlama (pronounced Shlama, or Shlomo in the Western Syriac dialect) (ܫܠܡܐ), Mandaic šlama (ࡔࡋࡀࡌࡀ) are cognate Semitic terms for 'peace', deriving from a Proto-Semitic *šalām-.

Bêl (/ˈbeɪl/; from Akkadian: bēlu) is a title signifying 'lord' or 'master' applied to various gods in the Mesopotamian religion of Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia. The feminine form is Bêlit ('Lady, Mistress') in Akkadian. Bel is represented in Greek as Belos and in Latin as Belus. Belit appears in Greek form as Beltis (Βελτις). Linguistically, Bel is an East Semitic form cognate with the Northwest Semitic Baal with the same meaning.

Bel was especially used for the Babylonian god Marduk in Assyrian and neo-Babylonian personal names or mentioned in inscriptions in a Mesopotamian context. Similarly, Bêlit mostly refers to Marduk's spouse Sarpanit. Marduk's mother, the Sumerian goddess often referred to in the Sumerian language as Ninhursag, Damkina, and Ninmah, was often known as Belit-ili ('Lady of the Gods') in Akkadian.