Thank you, Madeleine. All noted. The link between HU-A or A-HU and both "water bird" and the Milky Way is intriguing. It could well be that you have uncovered a proto-Sumerian connection between waterbirds and the Milky Way of a type that is common in northern Europe and North Asia, and at least dates back to the Upper Palaeolithic epoch.

My personal belief, which is difficult to prove, is that the Tower of Babel and the confusion of the languages relates not to Mesopotamia but to a much earlier tradition associated with the World Mountain or Cosmic Mountain in the centre of the world, and the divergence of languages from a common root. This is something that occurred in southern Siberia and Mongolia and involved primary languages such as Tungus, Mongolian and Turkic. The theory is not popular, I know, but I believe there is something in it.

Look beyond Mesopotamia for your answers, Madeleine.

Remember also that as early as 1874 French scholar Charles Lenormant wrote extensively about the overlaps between Akkadian, Uralic and also Finno-Ugric base languages.

I have no idea on the origins of the toponym Zawi Chemi Shanidar. By the term Shanidar sounds so beautiful, don't you think!