What follows is really a fairly improbable chain of speculations but you might be interested in them. They developed after a reader asked me about the origins of the names Urshanabi and Enkidu.
URSHANABI
Sumerian UR in proper names in my opinion relates to Greek OUR- as in ouranos (heaven), in Latvian ĀRĀ "all that is outside".
Shanabi viz. Shanibi is in my opinion related to the Latvian term Zinība viz. Zināšana (knowledge, from Ziņas "news" whence Science i.e. Scns / Zns = Ziņas) and where the BI- or BA- suffix in Latvian is like the English ending -ledge together with the word "know-" or -ment with wonder (wonderment) or -ness with like (likeness) or -ing with eat (eating), etc. Hence I think that Ur-Shanabi was something like UR-ZINIBA "the incarnation of the knowledge of the heavens", represented in the Gilgamesh epic as the personified Urshanabi (the heavenly ferryman).
It may of course be that the concept of the "New Year" is also intended by Urshanabi since Hebrew Shanah also means "new year, transmutation, repeat", which corresponds to Ur-Shanabi's role as "the ferryman" (over the divide of time in heaven), in which case UR-SHANABI would be comparable to Hebrew Rosh Hashanah "the head of the New Year", but this would not explain how that concept was personified, whereas the UR-ZINIBA or UR-ZINIBAI explanation as "(for) heaven's knowledge" does.
ENKIDU and ANUGITA
ENKIDU is sometimes written ENKITA and this is surely the same as Sanskrit ANUGITA
http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Anugita/id/99041, a word allegedly derived "from anu (after, alongside) + gita (sung, chanted, song) and thus Enkidu was "the (song) buddy alongside" GILGAMESH (astronomically Orion) although ANU might also simply here be "heaven".
The song connection corresponds in fact with Sumerian logogram (written symbol) du12, as in Enki-du.
Sumerian du12 at Patrick Ryan's website
http://www.geocities.com/Proto-language/SumerianSignValueRegister.htm
is archaic symbol 944
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/SumerianSigns/SSDu12-574-944.jpg (sign)
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/SumerianArchaicSignTable.htm
(see the sign lower-down on that page)
and du12 is thought to mean "to play an instrument, to sing"
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9609b&L=linguist&D=1&P=3575
and that would be Latvian "dzied".
ANUGITA and the UPANISHADS
Anugita was one of the Upanishads
http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Anugita/id/198689
"the philosophical parts of the Vedas"
http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/nbspUpanishads/id/91852
The Upanishads are "one of the scriptures of Hinduism. The inspired teachings, visions, and mystical experiences of the ancient sages of India (exceeding one hundred texts); the concluding portion of the Vedas and the basis for Vedantic philosophy."
http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Upanishads/id/87286
EPIC OF GILGAMESH
Gilgamesh as stated in the eulogistic Prologue to the Epic of Gilgamesh
http://www.crock11.freeserve.co.uk/gilgamesh.htm
was King in Uruk (Biblical Erech, modern Warka)
who built brick walls, a rampart and a temple for Anu, god of the firmament (the heavens).
Note that in spite of the fact that the Epic of Gilgamesh tells us explicitly why the ziggurats and pyramids were built (as temples for gods of the heavens), mainstream scholars still don't get it, with very few exceptions, such as Werner Papke (see http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi43.htm).
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
As we see from our analysis of his buddy's name EnKITA (meaning "alongside KITA"), Gilgamesh is correctly transcribed as GITA-mesh and not GILGA-mesh, and this corresponds to the Sanskrit, Vedic GAUTAMA, who is the key figure in Buddhism as Gautama Buddha. GAUTAMA is similar to Latvian GAUDAMA "to be sung, wailed" viz. Latin GAUDEAMUS (rejoice!), and that is why du12 has to do with song, it is a homophonic symbol.
The scholars think that the original Gautama Buddha was born as Siddhartha Gautama ca. 563 BC which can not be correct since Siddhartha Gautama (the Supreme Buddha) as a name means "descendant of Gautama whose aims are achieved". Hence, Siddhartha Gautama was only a descendant of the original GAUTAMA, who was the true Buddha, and whose myth and legend reach much further back historically into the ancient days of Sanskrit and the Vedas and the Land of Five Rivers, Punjab, home of the Indus Valley Civilization, and that takes us back to 3000 B.C.
As written at
http://www.punjabonline.com/servlet/library.history?Action=Page&Param=4
"the aborigines [of Punjab] ... buried their dead in the ground, beneath circular stones, mounds and perpendicular slabs, like the early inhabitants of Europe".
and so we have arrived - again - at the megalith builders, who are then clearly the originators of the astronomical epic of Gilgamesh and the temple(s) built to ANU, god of the firmament, i.e. God of the Heavens. Anu is Latvian Jānis in the Dainas, also found in Latvian in the form JĀŅU ("of John", God of Midsummer, i.e. god of the Summer Solstice, probably rooted in the Latvian word JAUNU meaning "new").
That above website thinks the dark aborigines were the megalith builders, preceding the Aryans and the Vedas, but of course, this is not true for there is no evidence that they ever took any of this custom with them when the Aryans supplanted them, so that the Sanskrit-speaking Aryans must have been the megalith builders. The megalith builders were fair-skinned, based on the few depictions we have of them, and they brought their culture with them. These same Aryans are also the Sumerians. The Sumerian and Akkadian myths and legends, including their verses,
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi55.htm
just like Sanskrit language and the Vedas
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi51.htm
are similar to Latvian language and the Latvian Dainas (Lithuanian Dainos)
http://www.dainas.com/
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi54.htm
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi99.htm
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi197.htm
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi200.htm
When we say "LATvians", we presume here to be talking about the ancient "Germanic" (for lack of a better general term) dwellers of Balto-Scandia (Baltic Scandinavia). A LAT is Swede or Norwegian to a Lapplander and in English we still speak of LADs, LADDies and LADys, while German LEUTE means "people".
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi48.htm
The Sumerian-Akkadian terms for Gilgamesh are
Ziu-suddu (Ziusuddu) and Utna-pishtim (Utnapishtim)
which correspond to Latvian
Ud(z)ens-zens (Udens zens) and Udena-puisitim (Udena puisitim)
meaning
"son of the flood, son of the waters".
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi141.htm
see also
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi32.htm
where Enkidu is also called Lu.CHUNG.GA (Lu is a determinative meaning "citizenry", Latvian LAUdis, German LEUte) and CHUNG.GA is Latvian KUNG- (KUNGA), the Latvian form of address comparable to "Sir" in English, and thus heavenly "Lord of the people (of the earth)".
And if this is the flood of the last Ice Age melt, as we think it is, then this takes us clear back to ca. 5600 BC.
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi44.htm
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