Are the word ship and the suffix -ship (as in ownership) related etymologically?
Ship, as in boat, is rooted in the Proto-Germanic “skipam”, same meaning; Proto-Indo-European root uncertain.
-ship, as in quality or condition, is rooted in Proto-Indo-European “skep”, meaning “cut” or “scrape”, whose meaning evolved to mean “shape” in Germanic (a form which is cut off from a larger whole), and which led to “-ship”, meaning “shape” in the abstract sense of “quality” or “condition”.
(acc. to the American Heritage Dictionary)
Note to self – Next time in Australia, bring dictionaries to hand out to the natives!