When Latin borrowed the root of "govern" from Greek, it was a nautical term, to steer. We have a tendency to think of "cy" as an S followed by an "ai" diphthon

When Latin borrowed the root of "govern" from Greek, it was a nautical term, to steer. We have a tendency to think of "cy" as an S followed by an "ai" diphthong. But if we consider the "c" as a hard /k/ and the "y" as a vowel similar to /u/, there isn't a huge difference between "cyber" and "guber", the latter form showing up in Latin and ultimately in English words like "gubernatorial".