Wrath of the Licking

[pierski]

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Licking... the tagline would read "Prepare for the tongue bath from hell!" And just for added measures, its a parody of this picture.

Before I did this comic, for my own purposes, I looked all over for the web for the true pronunciation of lich. The most obvious is would be lich as in rich. Though I also saw leech, lick (yes, lick), litch and lietch. The word itself is archaic, but was brought back to life by the powers at Dungeons & Dragons. So they should know how to say it, right? Then I saw it was derived from the German word Leiche meaning corpse. And that word was pronounced lijuh (mp3... thanks Dave). Which in turn would make lich pronounced leejuh. So after all the searching I learned two things. One, I have way too much free time on my hands. And two, I still don't know.

Before I depart, I'd like to pass some love to the brillantly written and drawn "World of Warcraft" comic Looking For Group. Ryan Sohmer and Lar Desouza make an awesome combination in Least I Could Do and their magic works equally as well in this endeavor. Check it out.

See you on Saturday as I bring this Week of WoW to a close.

Oh yeah, Halo 3 came out yesterday...

[General WX]

Took me a bit to get it, but once I did I was rolling.

I'm pumped for the epic conclusion on friday.


Oh yeah. 1st post.

[Kerrah]

Looking For Group is not a WoW-comic, it's a generic fantasy one.

Registered to the forums just to be first to mention that.

[Melchior]

Beeing German myself I never had any problems of pronouncing "lich" in a way that sounded right to me.

My guess was always the same as yours, that "lich" was kind of related to the the German word "Leiche" meaning corpse. Actually I have no idea how you want to pronounce "lijuh" but no way I could think of comes even close to the actual German pronounciation, which can be found here (even though it's an artificial voice) http://www.dict.cc/?s=lich
That is just because the letter "J" is produced in the front of your mouth using the tip of your tounge to squeeze out the air, whereas the "ch" in "Leiche" comes from the back of your throat.
I don't believe to have ever heard a single word within the English language that used this sound.
But you could try this dictionary entry http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?b ... ry&va=loch
and click on the second red speaker to hear a male voice pronounce the word "loch" similiar to the German way of pronouncing it.
Now just change the "o" in loch to a long "e" as in "leech" but keep his way of pronouncing the "ch". It's a little rough though not exactly the way I would say "lich" but close enough.

I believe the most obvious way of pronouncing lich if your not German but English would be to make it just like "rich".

[pierski]

Looking For Group is not a WoW-comic, it's a generic fantasy one.

Well, I did put the WoW in quotes. But Looking For Group does borrow heavily from the WoW Universe. Check out its Wikipedia entry.

[pierski]

Actually I have no idea how you want to pronounce "lijuh" but no way I could think of comes even close to the actual German pronounciation...

I updated the main page with a link to the German pronunciation of the word. But I'll place it here as well. Speaking English, the "H" sound in leiche is not something I can make or hear. So as far as I can tell it sounds like "juh" or "zjuh". Closest thing I can think of...

[Valentine]

damn it pierski edit button

now that i did that good comic and has been saved for future use

[gala_silverstar]

Most people I know pronounce it [litch] as in like [pitch] (through various RP,tabletop, and live action) although with the explanation in German, I"d say the closer pronunciation would be [laitch] given the English spelling of the word. (oh, and ch and tch as in rich and pitch are actually the same pronunciation phonetically)

See, the problem is, the German pronunciation feels unnatural in an English speaking mouth. I don't think we have any English words that have sound in the word final position. [which I think is a voiced post-alveolar fricative] The only time we have it is in the middle of words (like in measure) So, instead the closest we can come is the sound [sh] (voiceless post-alveolar fricative) so the pronunciation could be [laish] . But, evidently the German and English spelling of words differs from our respective pronunciation, since they assign "ch" to the "j" sound, that's how we spelled it. Because of that, an English speaker is going to see the word and associate the [tch] sound with it normally.

Now, for the prescriptive explanation: with the spelling lich, the [i] would be short like in itch because there is no vowel after the [ch]. as far as the "ch" ? I don't remember the rule for that, but I"m fairly sure it's not [k] if for no other reason than that would be getting too far from the German pronunciation.

To sum up: my money is on [litch] or [laitch] (and only the second because of the German vowel)

Clear as mud? yeah. thought so. There really doesn't seam to be a clear cut answer as far as I can see. I've been taking Linguistics classes, so I thought I'd put my 2 cents into the hat. I could be completely wrong, and my full explanation isn't up here, but for that I would need phonetic characters, which would probably be more confusing.

[elvor]

Wow Pierski, you really opened a can of worms with this one.

Nice comic, by the way.

[Kerrah]

Well, I did put the WoW in quotes. But Looking For Group does borrow heavily from the WoW Universe. Check out its Wikipedia entry.

I am aware (I did find the comic from the WoW front page), but it does not happen in Azeroth. Every time someone calls it a "WoW comic", some noob thinks it does, which makes me angry.

[pierski]

I am aware (I did find the comic from the WoW front page), but it does not happen in Azeroth. Every time someone calls it a "WoW comic", some noob thinks it does, which makes me angry.

True, its not an official in the World of Warcraft universe comic... but it does borrow for it and other fantasy creations. Just feels they borrowed from WoW the most. How much is up for debate, but I doubt Ryan would deny its roots.

[pierski]

Wow Pierski, you really opened a can of worms with this one.

Its an interesting topic to discuss... especially on a gaming comic's site. I like it.

[Ento]

I always pronounced it "like". I guess that's wrong...

[Richard]

gala_silverstar wrote: (Well, really a bunch of stuff. I'm not gonna repeat it here...)

Ow.. my brain hurts...

[Spektral]

I always had this need to rip out Lickitung's tongue...I just...I just....I MUST!