[thaumasiotes]

You see the same thing in other areas. In Mandarin Chinese, the sounds represented by "si" in English vision or "r" in English virile are the same sound.

An English speaker (like speakers of many other languages) would find this ridiculous, but it is true that the two sounds represent either side of a completely arbitrary threshold applied to a continuous phenomenon.

[taway1237]

It's like in English the sound represented by "ś" in Polish "ściągać" and "sz" in Polish "szumieć" are the same sound (usually written "sh") :).