There's no "technically" about it. That's just what the word means. It's irrelevant how similar they sound to the English ear; you might as well argue that "the

There's no "technically" about it. That's just what the word means. It's irrelevant how similar they sound to the English ear; you might as well argue that "the" is interchangeable with "duh". Also, contrary to the GP, there's no difference in stress, which is on the first syllable in both words. The reason they're different words is that "sh" vs. "ch" is a phonemic distinction in Russian, just as it is in English. That's why we distinguish between "sheep" and "cheep", for example, and would regard it as bizarre to conflate them.