How do you say Lich?
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- Опубліковано 5 жов 2024
- How do you say(pronounce) the word 'Lich'?
Be sure to check out the great response video 'Pronunciation of the Word Lich...' from StarduskLP : • Pronunciation of the W...
I often get told off for not pronouncing the word Lich as 'Litch' so I want to start a conversation about the origins of the word, and what (if any) is the correct pronunciation.
Thumbnail is by andreamkall. - Ігри
only gopher can make a video about how to say "lich" and make it 9 minutes long
+Pash17V When you install games, instead of music and slideshows, they should use Gopher's videos to entertain you.
Very interesting video !
For the etymology, no need to look further, you have obviously found it.
I'm into languages, so I can probably give you some answers, but you will probably find them disappointing.
Your comments raise two interesting questions about languages :
1) The relations between written and spoken language.
For how long humanity has spoken is hard to tell, but it's on a completely different scale than how long it has written its languages. For tens of thousands of years languages have evolved without any form of writing which appeared only 5000 years ago. Widespread litteracy is only 100 years old. That's something we have to keep in mind as most people confuse dictionnary and vocabulary, letters and phonemes (sounds), the ability to read aloud a foreign language and to speak it.
Writing has only recently had a strong influence on how we speak. Now we have the illusion that the "pure" or essential form of a word is its writing,
Lich is a revived word of old English that has been used in recent books to give a mysterious and esoteric feel; it had disappeared from the english language, replaced by french cadavre or corpse, and came back as an unkown group of four written letters in some book. So people reading it made up a prononciation and that means all of them are acceptable.
2) Languages that don't reflect their prononciation into their written form.
In that english is an extreme case but there is also french to a lesser extent (and of course languages with ideograms like chinese or old egyptian). Most european languages reflect exactly the sounds of words into their written form. In those languages that debate wouldn't even happen because everyone would know how to say "lich" just my looking at its orthography. Again that means, in your language, trying to find a correct prononciation for a dead written word is impossible.
You could go even further and ask yourself if talking about correct ways of speaking is valid at all.
That notion of "correct" is debatable itself : who defines what is correct? which social class?
Is there a correct way of speaking at all as opposed to incorrect ones and if so, how does it justify this claim?
And most of all, who cares when most viewers will think : fuck that comment, too many words :)
Hey Gopher, I know this is an old vid but your pronunciation of 'loch' was absolutely beautiful and exemplar.
And don't worry, we Scots don't easily get offended.
Really? You may (or rather probably) know the scottish band Runrig and to me it always sounded like they were pronouncing the Loch in "Loch Lomond" like lock. Did I hear that wrong or do you know another reason for this?
Perhaps the 'ch' would have been difficult to hear in song. Then again, not all Scots pronounce the 'ch' as they find the Anglicised 'ck' easier to say.
Runrig are good.
You also have to look at similar words in the English language such as 'Rich'. In German you have 'Reich' and 'Leiche' for 'Rich' and 'Corpse' respectively. In Danish its 'Rig' and 'Lig' (pronounced like "Ree" and "Lee"). In all three languages these two words (if we accept 'Lich' to be synonymous with 'Corpse' in English) are pronounced very similarly. The same goes for other Scandinavian languages such as Swedish and Norwegian where the words are 'Rik' and 'Lik' (pronounced 'Reek' and 'Leek').
I think it comes down to how the TES world pronounces it. When it comes to actual pronunciations, it can vary so much, pending dialect, regional influence and origin. As it is pronounced in TES, that is where I would put my best interest. That being as Gopher pronounced it from the most common use of the term.
I'm so happy to speack a language with prety strict pronunciation rules, so you can read any word you don't know and know how it's pronounced
Arthas is scratching his head right now
I have heard it quite a few times as "Litch" in morrowind, oblivion, WoW, and a few odds and end movies and shows. but hey, we all pronounce things differently so it's interesting to see this, thanks Gopher :)
According to its etymology, both [lɪt͡ʃ] _and_ [lɪx] are incorrect. It comes from an Old English/Anglo-Saxon word, namely _lic_ (if your browser/operating system can display it, it would be written in Fuþorc as ᛚᛁᚳ), from Proto-Germanic *_likow_. Using Anglo-Saxon pronunciation rules, that word would be pronounced [lik]; a homophone of leak and leek.
I assume (though I don't know for sure) that the terminal _may_ have been inserted to show aspiration, as in (Ancient) Greek letter Χχ "chi", which was [kʰ] before it became [x~χ].
In Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, they give the pronunciation as "lik" ( I guess that's "lick" and not "like") and list related words Lich fowls (birds that feed on carrion), Lich-gate (described as a sort of porte-cochere at a cemetery), Lick-owl (screech owl), Lich-wake (a wake for the dead), and Lich-way (the route of a funeral procession). Thanks, Gopher, for sending us on this interesting quest!
Wow, has it really been 3 years since you made this video ? :D
One of the reasons English (both it's British and American forms) speakers tend to be so interested in complex etymologies is simply that English is such an amalgamated language! Even in it's simplest form, it contains influences of almost every root language- Latin, Germanic, Gaelic, Cyrillic, Arabic... and as it evolves, it continues to adopt other languages into itself. Thus, determining a word's origins helps to at least understand it's pronunciation.
It doesn't take much to offend Scotland, really.
Oh, bother...
I'm not entirely sure, I've always pronounced it 'Litch' because a majority of people I've spoken to while playing Fantasy games or relating to fantasy literature. I've heard it pronouced the way you've said it with the halfway 'ch' sound, I've also heard it said 'lyke', rhyming with 'bike'.
My girlfriend is a vampiress, and she likes it when I lich her.
+gpgpgpgp1000 This is amazing
It always surprises me how little people know of the way language works. Fascinating video!
The word 'lich' enters fantasy gaming through the 'Greyhawk' supplement for D&D in 1975. The word probably comes from the Old English 'līc', meaning 'dead body'. That word is pronounced similarily to 'leek', with a long wovel. Which is to say exactly like in Norwegian. The old word survives in some compound words in modern English, such as 'lych-gate' (roofed gate by a cemetary). That is pronounced 'litch-gate', according to my dictionary. It's hard to say where Gygax found the word though.
Whilst I'm not sure of the origins of the word, I did used to live in a city in central England called Lichfield, which is known for its cathedral. To the locals, (at least the ones I was in contact in) the 'Lich' part of the word was pronounced 'Litch'. According to wikipedia, Lichfield translates to 'field of the dead', because of a legend of thousands of Christians being crucified there around 300 A.D., but the 'Lich' in its name is derived from Letocetum, meaning 'grey wood'.
There is a term, "lychgate" in Roman Catholicism, which refers to the covered area at the entrance to a cemetery. That term is in fact pronounced "litch-gate", but is derived from the Old English word, "lic".
H.P. Lovecraft also used the term "lich" in a 1937 novel to refer to a possessed corpse. This is most likely the first use of the word in the way that we're used to since the Sword and Sorcery genre, where the term was popularized, wasn't around until the 1960s.
Also found :
Lich, lych - A lychgate is an entrance to a churchyard where a body rests before burial--"lych" means person or dead body (From German "Leiche", meaning "dead body, cadaver, corpse").
No, but it is mentioned in the 1977 AD&D Monster Manual, And that is the earliest I have found where the word Lich is used to name that particular creature
Lich has a 1.5 column entry in the Oxford English Dictionary 1971 edition that you will find most interesting. The OED gives Old English, Old Frisian, Old HIgh German, Low German, MIddle HIgh German, Dutch and etc. That could mean that this is a rather ancient word that was commonly used across northern Europe and brought to England by the Saxons. Pronunciations seem to vary from "like" to "leech" and everything in between. The oldest citation in the OED is Beowulf...to be continued
according to some etymology website I found the words lic; lik, lijk, lih, litch, lych (all meaning; body, dead body or corpse in several languages) come from the proto-germanic "likow" meaning lich-gate or gate to a graveyard.
According to wikipedia it was introduced in D&D's first supplement Greyhawk (1975) and further developed in Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry (1976).
Guys, check out the vid response by StarduskLP. It is pretty incredible.
Not a convincing argument really. Leprechaun. Chaos. Character. Chitin.Loch Ness. Epoch. etc.
However it would seem that Lich it pronounced 'litch'. See the response video by StarduskLP for the reasons why :)
I speak German fluently, and have lived in Germany for about 5 years now. That word, 'Leiche', is pronounced with a soft 'ch' (basically the way Gopher has been pronouncing the 'ch' in 'Lich') followed by an 'eh' sound. So: 'Lei-cheh'. 'Lei' is pronounced just like the English word 'Lie'. To hear the word, just give 'corpse' into Google Translate and listen to the German translation.
As a swedish student, with only minor experience with English language, i always thought of it as "litch" I always compared it to other English words as "which" which have a th sound as well.
the swedish word for corpse is "Lik" with a very hard K sound and a very long " i " sound. Like the english word "lick" only with a longer " i " sound.
It is derived from the word Lic in old english as you said, and that stems to the word Lychgate (variant spelling exists), the gate with a roof in front of a cemetery, which were made as early as the 13th century (St George's churchyard Beckenham, South London, is claimed to be the oldest), although they were mainly constructed in the 15th. These were to provide shelter for a coffin to pass under and a priest (and mourners) while he read the first part of the service. I have only tracked it here
"Communication" and "Language" are 2 entirely different animals that quite often run circles around each other. Language shapes our words and how we communicate, but communication builds our language. We had no word for computer until we needed one.
By this understanding, there is no 'wrong' way to say Lich so long as your audience understands what you mean to say.
I remember a tale of a Mesopotamian king with Lich like qualities, but was never described as Lich, can no longer find the source.
The confusion is because there are 2 words that mean different things.
There are words in the old Germanic languages meaning "Corpse" or "Remains" that are pronounced like the word "Lick", "Like", "Leek" or "League".
When Gary Gygax was creating his world for D&D he used that word as the root for a new word that SPECIFICALLY refers to an UN-dead spell caster who CHOSE to become one. His word is pronounced like the word "Witch" or "itch" with an L in front.
@Gopher: I'm from Greece and the word "Beta" comes from the 2nd letter in our alphabet, which is B and we call it "Βήτα", which is pronounced like "Vita" in English... So, the English changed it from Vita to Beta, so I guess you are saying it correctly. It must be pronounced as "Bita" in English and not "Beta", even if it is written like it, just because in English B=B and in Greek B=V; and don't forget. the letter "E" in English is called "i" (not "ai" like the letter, just "i"), so...
Gary Gygax and Brian Blume, 1976, Eldritch Wizardry, for the modern lich. The codification of modern fantasy comes from these two gentlemen. It's amazing how much of what we regard of as fantasy is rehashed Dungeons and Dragons.
My own humble understanding of linguistics (ON, OE, Old Germanic, English in very specific contexts) supports StarduskLP's video response above, who replied far better than I would or could have. :) That's a great video.
Looking in my copy of the OED printed in 1987 it indicates the spelling as lit[tall s that looks like an integral sign] which is the same as the word 'itch' except for the initial letter. It also notes it is used in the poem Beowulf in several places in the form 'lic' where my study of OE indicates that a final c is pronounced as the ch in church. so the 'ch' is a modern spelling of the old sound. I know my first sight of this word was in D&D module Tomb of Horrors, which had an Arch-Lich.
I can't say anything about the words historical roots, but according to wikipedia Gygax introduced Lich into D&D in 1975 for it's first supplement: Greyhawk. Wizard of the Coast's D&D FAQ archives lists some commonly misspelled names, and in there LICH is pronounced as LITCH. FAQ's pronounciations are based on common-practice, TSR rulings and Frank Mentzer's article in Dragon (jan. 1985) "Ay pronunseeAYshun gyd".
A nine minute video about the pronunciation of one word, with other discussions in the comments. Good job.
Your initial way of pronouncing it sounds pretty spot on.
(American dialect) Well In the account of pronouncing the word, in english, usually no words have a plain ch in that fashion. Meaning that there are almost no words that are used with ch like that. With that it means that most people have many issues saying lich, like it's spelled li-ch. (A lot of people will still see that as litch) While saying it as, litch is much easier than the orignal form. So maybe that helps? People can continue to comment on this to further clarify the answer.
I just absolutely love Gopher rants.
The word lick pops up in most legends of corpses or some history books. There is a history book In Egypt speaking of a Lick walking around it's temples,It is said that this which is an old Egyptian king that never died.
If you want a scholarly approach to its history, look it up in the OED (Oxford English Dictionary). It is definitely an old word, as noted by the term lychgate which is a form still used when describing graveyards and churchyards.
I do remember that H.P. Lovecraft did use the word Lich within his short story "The Thing on the Doorstep" published in 1937 for the January issue of "Weird Tales" (essentially a horror magazine) where upon Daniel Upton (the narrator of the story) refers to the corpse of his friend which was possessed by a sorcerer. But that's as far back as I could find, yet I'm sure there is some obscure folktale involving a Lich to be found. As for pronunciation well, to each his own tongue I suppose.
In one of the first danish folk-tales I ever heard the following I remember has been told sincethe beginning of nordic folklore. It stated: "Og liget steg op" (And the corpse/lich ascended/arose) which would confirm (as you suggested Gopher) that the word is of germanic/nordic origin. (cont.)
As for the fact that many people suggest Lich at least somewhat originates from old German (which I cannot confirm or deny), I, as a native German speaker just want to clarify as to how most of us would pronounce it. The way Gopher says it at 1:31 comes pretty close. It's a very soft ch, not spoken in the back of your throat (like your Scottish Loch Ness) but further up front. You can check out the pronounciation of Leiche (German corpse), at e.g. leo.org. That's the correct, soft ch there.
I just played through (spoilers) the Hevnoraak quest located in Valthume. The quest-giver mentions that Hev wanted to turn himself into a lich, pronounced like "litch" for what it's worth. Of course, the VA was subject to the same potential mispronunciation that we're all using. But that's an in-game example anyway.
I honestly dont know why there is a heated debate about pronouncing the word lich. Just say it how you want to say it, It doesn't need a discussion. Its a word. Not even a commonly used word.
The earliest published usage of the term lich in the context we are now familiarized with (that being a reanimated corpse possessed by some sorcerer or spirit) is in Ambrose Pierce's short story The Death of Halpin Frayser published in 1891, and then later in some works of H.P. Lovecraft. One can assume then that the use of the term in later fantasy lexicon is largely due to the early success of Dungeons and Dragons. The pronunciation is another matter altogether, though I do prefer your saying.
Gopher i would love to see you make a video on your top 10 mods you can't live without and why, please keep the videos coming and keep up the great work up
My personal understanding on the topic is that Gygax is the popularizer of the term as it is modernly used in fantasy settings, but of course not the first to use it. The term 'lich' in particular was stated in one of the first edition AD&D books to have been based from an English translation of a German pulp short story, so I've always preferred standard modern German phonemes, as in Lichtenstein, but I typically use the standard US pronunciation in conversation so as to be understood clearly.
Thankyou for the correction - I did read before posting but with my dyslexia I don't always catch mistakes with similar looking words.
I firmly believe that the soft 'ch' method (the German way) is the most correct way, because the word has Germanic origins, and that's just how you pronounce something spelled that way. However, I say it as 'litch', simply because, as an English speaker, it flows off the tongue much easier.
But, at the end of the day, it's a word used almost exclusively in fantasy context, and everybody knows what you mean either way, so I don't worry too much about it.
because that word is very long in those languages and used quite often in mathematics, and words that common in a language tend to be changed to fit more the pronunciation of that language.
I think it's all about accents personally. People will generally say things the way they think they should be said based on similar words, and letter combinations that they are used to saying/using.
First place where I learned this word was Warcraft III, and it pronounces it the most common way
My thoughts too ... how else would you pronounce that?
When I first saw the name in my D&D manual, I ended up pronouncing it "Lich" (with the -ch sounding like a cat hissing). However, I slowly went over to pronouncing it "Litch" out of it being easier on my tongue and making it flow better in speech. In the end, I believe it boils down to the tomayto-tomahto thing. It doesn't really matter how you pronounce it.
The concept of the lich as something more than just a zombie like creature probably comes from the Russian myth of Koschei the Deathless. Koschei was a Russian wizard whose soul was in a needle, which was in an egg, which was in a duck, which was in a hare, which was in an iron bound chest, which was buried under an oak tree on the island of Buyen... continued.
In all seriousness, I found something on wikipedia that might help with this. It's a song that's supposed to commemorate the passage of the SOULS of the DEAD. And it's called the LYKE-Wake Dirge. I'm assuming Lyke is pronounced as 'like'. Silly youtube won't let me add links.
A lich is where coffin carriers used to put the coffin outside the church (the gate) and it does mean corpse
that glass armor re-tex looks great
Gopher I love your videos and your voice. You can miss pronounce every word and I will still love it :P
I like how Gopher knows the difference between a credible source (various ancient texts) vs a non credible source (google). A lot of people would take the google search as absolute fact
Your sarcasm and good spirit are equally shown in this video :) good job!
The closest would be "liːk" (feel) or possibly "leɪk" (vein). As for your query to the word Draugr, the most probable pronunciation would be "drɔːɡ" (dawn).
The word is still in use in some parts of Norway to describe an incredibly lazy person, or layabout. In Swedish the word "drog" (same sound) connotes to narcotics, so there might be a link there, and possibly to the English word "drug"..
English, German and Nordic people all came from the same place, they are the in the same language group, so it's rather hard to dispart these languages when it comes to old words.
I think the vernacular is with Litch, but it came from a word that sounds like Lick or Like, but we already have Lick and Like as a major words in English so it makes a lot more sense to change the pronunciation. It is a distinct word in English, being pronounced as Litch, and is therefore more efficient and useful in our language, though it may be etymologically incorrect, or whatever... because of COURSE words differ from language to language. Might also be Litche, as in a hard I as in Like.
Leek or Leech are both English words already too.
The best philosophers do ponder the most vast things.
Gopher has given us a real life quest...
I learned it as "litch" because i have heard other people saying it in video games reviewing or when a video game was released and it was described, they said it always like that, so yeah that's mostly why i haven't changed my way of saying it
Language is merely a tool for comunication. As long as your audience understands the message you want to deliver, you said it right. If this wasn't the case, then dialects wouldn't be part of a language.
First off, Beta is an Ancient Greek letter so before Americans start arguing, they should look it up. American English also devalues the meaning of words from Latin and Ancient Greek. E.g. Oesophagus is British English for the tubular structure leading to the stomach. In American English, it is written Esophagus. The pronunciation also changes. Oiso is Greek for channel or tube and once the 'o' in the English is dropped, the meaning of the word is also lost.
As for the pronunciation of 'Lich', I have always heard it as 'Litch' in the fantasy gaming world. Outside of this, from personal experience, the words are sounded as 'Lick' or 'Like'. I use 'Like' because I am British. Americans tend to use 'Litch'. If we look at the word 'Lichen' which is a colonial growth often found on trees, we British tend to say 'Liken' and Americans 'Litchen'. In the end it breaks down to descent. Wherever one comes from determines the pronunciation.
If someone managed to find the chest, the hare would run away, and if they killed the hare, the duck would fly away. If they got their hands on the egg, they could control Koschei, and simply moving the egg around would fling him physically about. .... continued.
I´m coming from Germany and the word "Leiche" is say: Lie-sche. It have 2 syllables. And it´s important to say the "e" in the end. The problem is, that there is no loud in the english language that sounds like the german "e". The english "e" sounds in german like an "i". And the german letters connection "ei" sounds in english like the character "i".
In our classes, we learned that apparently "lik" from norse, is going to be "liik" you kinda drag on the "i". Like we norwegians do today, but not much. Dunno if this is maybe the way the teacher was thinking, or that it is the 100% way to say it. Just something that I wanted to add.
I think it's pronounced "litch" because that's how my mother in law pronounced it when she was talking about the lichgate in a churchyard.
Also if you consult Cambridge Dictionaries Online you'll find that the only entry is for "lychgate" and that it's pronounced "litchgate". According to the Oxford Dictionary Online it's /ˈlɪtʃgeɪt/ for "lychgate"
I really thought more people would pronounce it like leash! I think I pronounce it this way because I was introduced to lich and liege around the same time and got them mixed up...but its cool to know that a lot of people who consume the media are also confused!
The Swedish (and Norwegian) pronunciation of "lik" is with a longer I. The Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic languages all have a common ancestry but it is said that Icelandic is more preserved. Unfortunately I don't know Icelandic, but you will probably find a very old word for "human cadaver" there.
the reason you hear "bey-dah" rather than "Bey-Tah" is the that person in question is slurring the word together to say it faster. as far as Lich goes, I say Litch but the pronunciation you use sounds pretty cool.
Gopher, this is why I love your videos and I like you. This is just something else!
Thank you. :)
I always pronounce it "lick". I've pronounced it that way for ages now, and all of the hard k and g sounds in the "corpse" words lead me to believe that that's a more likely pronunciation.
A lot of people who don't program actually say the letters. So instead of saying ini like 'in-ee' they would say 'I - N - I'. It's the same for gui (gooey versus G.U.I.) and other computer-related abbreviations.
the bay-ta pronunciation is a more southern (england) thing, whereas in more northern (english) accents where vowels are shortened it tends to be beeta. I believe it is just a regional thing, at least as it is said currently. some people seems to pronounce it beeta in order to distinguish it from the more common, Americanized pronunciation.
I would imagine the germanic is the oldest, from which the dutch, scandinavians, early english etc, is more like 'Lay'- 'k'/'ch' sounds
I did an Honours BA in English from a private Canadian University - 16 Credits worth. I also have Dutch (Fries) background. While homeschooling I was taught Latin and it was said that English is a Romance language. But in high level academics it is actually considered Germanic - the largest number of root words are from the Anglo-Saxon invasion. A linguistic purist, such as the Master of comparative linguistics, Tolkien, would go to war over using Germanic pronunciations. But it's a lost cause.
I've met lich for the first time in AD&D game (p'n'p), and our game master always said it like "litch" - so I had no reasons to doubt him
but we actually played in russian language, and we wright lich as "лич" - we have a single letter that in most cases is pronounced like "tch" (or like first sound in "chess", for example)
but while I've watched this video I've remembered an evil creature from russian folk tales with very similar name - "лихо"
you can read about it in Wiki - Likho (liho)
Point about regional pronunciation, seeing as I am an American, and grew up in southern California. Interesting how much variance is present with in the same language simply based on regional difference. Something that we discussed quite a bit when i was in the Corp, since we had guys from all over the country and the way we said the same things varied dramatically, not only in pronunciation, but even in common words for things.
[cont]lithuanian liẽknas "shapely[...]
Also: new-dutch: lijk, new-swedsih lik, new-islandlic lík.
So, it does indeed have it's origin in the "corpse", rooting back to a kind of "human body" in indo-germanic.
By the by, the German Leiche is pronounced as a ch sound as the "H" in the name "Hugh". The sound that's related to the "sh" in "ship". Add a short "e" at the end, and you got it pretty much. Same goes for the old/middle german pronounciatio
I've always said it Litch, but my first experiences with Liches, and the undead in general, came from World of Warcraft and Warcraft 3. I believe the modern Lich is something very different from earlier undead. Video games, tabletop, and modern fantasy takes from myth and legend, but has created its own culture, and it is this culture we draw on for Liches, and other such creatures.
Well a few people were apparently getting on to him for his pronunciation, but besides that, some people find language to be very, VERY interesting.
language is alive, and it evolves every time each person engage in a conversation. So if the word "Lich" is pronounced 'litch" so universally today, I say it should be pronounced as 'litch' regardless of how it was decades ago
Unlike more modern interpretations, Koschei wasn’t shown as a skeletal corpse, but rather as a normal man who simply could not die. The ghoulish look of a lich comes more from descriptions by the authors of Dungeons and Dragons, who brought the lich out of obscurity. The lich became a staple of gaming throughout the 70′s and 80′s, with Vecna, the lich-lord of Greyhawk, probably the best well known. That's what I could dig up on the subject hope it helps :D
Incidentally, Beta is pronounced /bɛːtɑ/ like "bet" with an extended vowel. Modern Greek has a V-sound, but internationally the ancient form is used (with, of course, the usual linguistic variances)
Just noticed the video response. Welp, that settles it then: it's litch for sure. Thanks for the thorough history StarduskLP!
Gopher your keeping me up very late again. Dungeons and dragons, circa 1980's. My buddies and I playing the game every possible minute that we could. Our parents thought we were going to crawl down into the sewers and play it out for real and maybe sacrifice the weakest one of my friends...We eventually started buying dungeon modules and somebody bought the Tomb of Horror's. That was the first time I came across the word Lich and we all pronounced it Litch.
My personal opinion about this subject is that, since lich seems to be a derivation of words referring to undeath that is used in fantasy games to refer to an undead overlord, it does not have one correct way of being said. It was written like that, so wherever you are and however your language treats that way of spelling is the way you say it. Some people would tend to say Litch, some other languages would tend to say something like Lirr or Lik or even Lish.
Yes, I pronounce it li-hhh, with the soft "H sound" as in northern Germany.
Personally I say Litch (ie Pitch).
That said, there's linguistic precedent for different pronunciations (just based on the phonetics of it). One reason I think American English speakers prefer Litch is simply because the soft ch (that Gopher uses) is simply not a common phonetic feature of American English.
My guess is that it probably was originally pronounced as Gopher says it (at least I always assumed so), but in linguistics things change over time and are relative to culture and language
The problem is that although there are many mythos about undead, until very recently there hasn't been any reference to lich. If i had to guess, it would be a northern european pronunciation, so it would be fairly difficult for those outside of Scotland, Norway etc. to pronounce. Thats why its sort of "Devolved" so to speak into a softer sounding "Ch". Combine that with games and movies using Liches being from America makes it so that the softer sounding pronunciation is more prominant.
In Hindi the word for corpse is, laash (Lāśa), which sounds similar to Gopher's pronunciation of Lich.
I'm really liking these videos where you talk about a certain element of the game. Would considering turning it into a series like Skyrim Books where you point a something interesting about Skyrim and just talk about it?