Why is the pronunciation of 'ch' different in chamber and chameleon? [duplicate]

Solution 1:

While chamber comes from the French chambre and has an English approximation of the French, chameleon comes from Greek and the first sound is an English approximation of the Greek letter χ.

Another curiosity that the French chambre comes from the Latin camera, and the English for the photographic equipment (originally camera obscura) came more directly from Latin. Shirt and skirt are other examples where the English pronunciation depends on the language route taken.

There is often no logic: the English church and Scots kirk are essentially the same word with different pronunciations evolving over time, and both changed the spelling to be more phonetic.