[FLT-bird]

English actually did something similar--our word for bear originally meant "the brown one."

It did? "Bear" in English sounds the same as and means the same things as "Bär" in German. A lot of the words for animals in English come from Anglo-Saxon which means they're the same or nearly the same in German. For example when it was in the field it was Swine ("Schwein"). When it was served on your dinner plate it was Pork ("porc" in French).

[Verginius Rufus]

I read that somewhere about "bear"--since the German word is similar to the English word it must predate when the Germanic languages began to become different languages. I can't swear to it...but the Latin and Greek words for "bear" are very unlike the English & German words--ursus and arktos respectively. (Hence "arctic" as the region under Ursa Major.) Spanish loses the R--oso.