Mark Hubey wrote

> 1. Sumerian goddess Inanna
> 2. Akkadian/Assyrian goddess Istar, Ishtar, Astarte
> 3. Greek goddess Aphrodites
> 4. Roman goddess Venus
>
> It is easy to combine 2 and 3 because the th>s and th>f occurs
> in other words, thus obtaining A/Ithar-. The metathesis occurs in
> Greek in other contexts e.g. Athur > Atro (atropatis),
> *kilkul (Witzel gives this as *gil gul) > *kulkulos > *kukulos >
> kuklos, etc.
>
> It is not difficult to insert an n, and assume -nth- instead of
> just plain th so A/Inthar-. According to Diakanoff the i/u are
> allophones of /a/ in Semitic. Thus, we have *anthar-. What could it
> mean?
>
> Could have something to do with "heat" (passion?) ?
>
> PS. Karachay-Balkar goddess of the home is Inay.

Mark, Ishtar/Astarte seems derived from the Proto-Semitic *Attar or
*Astar meaning "the planet Venus". It originally was perceived as a
male divinity (As Athtar is in Arabic I understand), becoming
feminised only with Akkadian contact with the Sumerians for whom
Inanna - their planet Venus - was feminine. It shows in the Syrian
Canaanite goddess Ashtarte where a feminine *-t was added to the
earlier *Ashtar to feminise him (i.e. Ashtar-t). It may even crp up
in Egyptian mythology as the god and goddess Ausar and Auset (Osiris
and Isis).

Inanna is quite different. In fact the name does not even appear to
be Sumerian (although they attempted a false etymology of An-nin
(=Lady of Heaven)). But in fact it doesn't work in Sumerian because
Inanna is in reality a pre-Sumerian Proto-Euphratean word (just as
are the names of all the Sumerian cities, the Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers, and the name of most of the arts of civilisation). These
Proto-Euphrateans seem to have been the first farmers of Southern
Iraq, who, dopting first a Samara and ten a Hadji Muhammed culture,
introduced the irrigrated agriculture upon which the Sumerian culture
was later to grow. These people, called Subartu in Sumerian, seem to
have spoken an early form of Proto-Hurrian. Inanna thus seems to be
an early version of te Hurrian mother Goddess Hannahannah - a name
that crops up widely in the Middle East (from Syrian Ana-t, to
Elamite Anah-ita, and possibly even as far afield as Mycenaean At-
hanai (Classical Athene). Hannah even appears in the Bible as the
mother of Samuel (= gift of God) and St Anna, mother of Mary.

Hope this helps

Regards

John