The Oldest Voices We Can Still Hear

My grandparents were born in the mid 1880s and my paternal grandmother lived to ninety seven years old. She told me it was an amazing life to see the number of changes, inventions, and advances that she did. From horse and buggy to a man on the moon... from the telegraph to computers.

This is just haunting. To hear the voices of people over a century ago really shakes a person's ideas of history and time. Really fascinating.

That last part,"no one knows what happened to his remains, but his voice lives on," sent chills up my spine.

4:22 humanity‘s first playable recording of its own voice from 1860 5:02 the earliest known recording of intelligible human speech 5:42 a song composed by Victor Massé 7:59 recording of Mary had a little lamb+laughter in 1878 11:05 oldest playable recording of a recognizable female voice 13:36 Helmuth Moltke‘s congratulatory message to Thomas Edison

Hearing the voice of a human born two centuries ago is both incredible and creepy

For how creepy and ghostly those digitalized 19th century recordings tend to sound i could not help but smile at the genuine hearty laughter of the gentleman reciting nursery rhymes. We are so accustomed to pictures and painting of 19th century people looking stoic and serious we tend to forget they were ordinary people capable of humor just as much as we are.

I love the fact that one of the oldest voices we have recorded has someone laughing 😊. And that the oldest (and so many others) have music in them😊

The feelings you get hearing this are hard to describe. As a german, hearing Van Moltken speak this same language some 140 years ago is really something else

I knew someone born in 1859 and when I asked her who was the oldest person she knew, it was her great grandmother who was born when Washington was president. So I guess I knew someone who knew someone when Washington was president. Brings the years closer together than we think.

Imagine the seconds after they finished speaking into the phonograph, telling those in the room what a remarkable machine it is and not knowing over a hundred years later thousands of people will be listening to their words, that are stuck in time, intently with fascination.

Moltke’s recording is astonishing. To think I can listen to the clear voice of a man born in the 18th century and who was fully aware that we would be able to is just incredible.

My grandfather was born in 1893, unfortunately he passed before I was born. Luckily his sister lived from 1897-2001 and when I was a teenager in the early 90s it was so fascinating talking with her. She had lived through WW1, WWII, Korean war, Vietnam war and Desert storm. She didn't have running water, electricity or an indoor bathroom until she was in her 40s. She never had a license. She didn't grow up with a car, tv or phone in the family or when she got married. They couldn't afford these things until they were in their 40s. Living in rural areas even made these things harder for her to obtain. She bought ice blocks because she didn't have a refrigerator, she chopped wood for her stove and hooked her buggy to the horse to go to town and church. Everything took hard work just to survive. Her horse was one of her most prized possessions, because they needed him to plow the fields and for transportation. They had to make sure he was fed and taken care of, like seeing the vet, before they could have things. It really put things in perspective of just how important their farm animals were to there survival. Her kids viewed a hot bath as a luxury, because that meant the parents had enough energy and wood to build a fire under the wash tub.

it's somewhat comforting to know Édouard-Léon was not only not forgotten but his voice is still heard centuries later. His wishes were certainly fulfilled.

“The phonograph makes it possible for a man, who has already rested long in the grave, once again to raise his voice and greet the present.” ~ Helmut von Moltke Geez, this hits hard.

Hearing the gleeful laughter of a man singing nursery rhymes almost 150 years ago made me emotional. What a beautiful recording!

The 1878 trumpet recording is my favourite. It feels alive. The 1860 "Au clair de la lune" song is haunting. The words "La lune", sung very slowly and clearly, are absolutely clear, and you can tell what his voice sounded like... It is something that the oldest recorded human voice sang in my native French, 163 years ago as I type this.

13:38 i'm german and listening to this man's eloquent use of words from more than 130 years ago was both fascinating and terrifying considering that he grew up during napoleon's peak

I met my great grandmother for the one and only time in 1960. The one and only sentence she said to me was " I've spoken to someone who had a conversation with Napoleon". She was 90 in 1960, so she must have been very young at the time and the person who spoke to Boney must have been quite old. If true, it's a tenuous connection spanning a long time but I can say that I've spoken to someone who has spoken to someone who chatted with Napoleon.

I inherited a plastic disk from my late mother. She recorded onto it in the 1940's as a young woman. Apparently, she was with my aunt and they saw this recording booth where you could go in and record and it would create the record. It was a novelty machine and the novelty didn't last long. But National Public Radio did a series a few years back where they attempter to find old recordings from the public. I submitted the record (which couldn't be played on any existing equipment) and they digitized it for me and used it on air. I was thrilled to hear the voice of my mother when she was a young woman. She just said a few things, but you could clearly understand it. There have been many ways to record since Edison. I appreciate your attempt to let us hear old sound.

People keep saying that its scary to hear voices of people that died long ago, but i just think its really fascinating