NEWSLINK Awful Avalanche: “Attack of the Giant Beavers North of Moscow!”

“… [a] piece in Komsomolka announces that the beaver population north of Moscow has increased in the past 3-4 years. And this is seen as a good thing. The Russian word for “beaver” is бобёр (pronounced “ba-BOR”), plural “ba-BRY”. This word is inherited from the ancient Proto-Indo-European language (PIE). Linguists reconstruct the original word as something like *bʰébʰrus from the root *bʰreu- (“brown”), so something like “brown animal”. Cognates in other Indo-European languages include Latvian bebrs, and, obviously, English “beaver” and “brown“, respectively. These words did not change very much over the millenia. And nor did beavers themselves. They are the same ugly but lovable critters which our ancestors encountered as they wended their way into the European rivers and marshes. …”