That doesn't answer the GP's question of whether there's an etymological link. That is, are the two words derived from the same root in some ancient language? It is a reasonable question since they are phonologically similar, but from different language families.
And just because two words sound similar doesn't mean they have similar roots. The word for “dog” in the Australian Aboriginal language Mbabaram happens to be “dog,” not because they have the same root but by coincidence.
What is also interesting is that certain words share similar literal constructions in unrelated languages.
The best example I've always thought of is the verb "to understand". Picture standing under something; you get to know it better.
In my native language Twi [1], the to understand is literally constructed as "to to sit under" I know of several other languages with very similar constructions.
There's nothing even slightly strange about it. The terms are self-recapitulating because parents mistake children's babbling for first words. If anything, it'd be strange if they weren't the same. Take a read of this: http://languagehat.com/trask-on-mama-and-papa/
Addendum: in case anybody's wondering what I meant when I wrote "it'd be strange if they weren't the same", I was referring to the high probability of them being coincidentally the same or at least very similar.
canal deriv. : 1400-50; late Middle English: waterpipe, tubular passage < Latin canālis, perhaps equivalent to can (na) reed, pipe (see cane ) + -ālis -al1; def. 5 a mistranslation of Italian canali channels, term used by G. V. Schiaparelli