Thread:User talk:CodeCat/Proto-Indo-European/reply (61)

Phonetic changes almost never take such considerations into account. They are kind of at a lower, more basic level, and are not normally affected by the meanings of words. It does sometimes happen, though, that when sound changes make certain words too similar, a language borrows an alternative form from another dialect or even another language. was borrowed from Old Norse in that way, to replace the original word which had become too similar to.