Voice of the Past: Alexander Graham Bell

The Voice of Alexander Graham Bell, with somewhat cleaner audio by removing the static caused by the wax disc's deterioration. Does he sound Scottish? He definitely sounds very Victorian, with a Scottish twinge on the r's and his pronunciation of Bell as Buwl. Maybe the posher timbre is due to his age at the time of the recording? Reversing the wheeziness in my mind makes it more like a Modern Glaswegian accent.

[@slamwall9057]

It sounds like a Minecraft Enderman

[@shortjohnsilver4605]

This can be used in a horror game as one of those haunting old recordings that suddenly activate when you walk into a room.

[@robertlozyniak3661]

The room is an item shop, run by a ghost. When you walk in, he's busy taking inventory. Then he notices you, and starts quoting the prices of his merchandise.

[@incredimixerchannelofficial]

@@robertlozyniak3661 That seems like a nice quote. Totally would buy something from the shop!

[@sean668]

2:39 Listen when he says "790,042". It sounds like "seven hundred ninety thousand, no hundred and forty two". I wonder if "no hundred" was a common thing people used to say when reading numbers

[@ABAlphaBeta]

It was! Just to be clear in transmitting the correct info, imagine building the wrong amount of something

[@Crick1952]

Yeah, he does it with the dollar amount as well Such a cool detail

[@robertlozyniak3661]

@@ABAlphaBeta I know that Mandarin Chinese does something similar for numbers such as 101 or 809, etc. The zero in such numbers is pronounced, using the word for zero. It seems Vietnamese uses a similar trick, at least in some dialects. I wonder how many other languages do this sort of thing.

[@nuttynoah5342]

If I got it right, it was written as "nough" instead of no.

[@robertlozyniak3661]

@Kelsey Gallo Yes, but "the one hundred and one students" has a *much* different meaning from "the one-oh-one students".

[@thitalo1239]

Sounds like a baby eating a camera.

[@ironiccookies2320]

i wouldnt have guess his voice to be so high pitch. or maybe its just the recording

[@ABAlphaBeta]

Seems it was genuinely quite high

[@varolussalsanclar1163]

Not really. He had to literally shout on top of his lungs for the recorder to pick up his voice.

[@ABAlphaBeta]

@@varolussalsanclar1163 Interesting, thanks for sharing that. It does sound like he's having to shout, like with old telephones.

[@thitalo1239]

1:04 gets better to understand here

[@jakep6660]

It really wasn't that long ago, but there's something haunting about this. Like listening to a spectre from a bygone era. Kind of surreal for some reason.

[@ACDBunnie]

Yeah I mean you're listening to a dead man from a time period so long ago that everyone from then, everyone in his life, is also dead. A little creepy.

[@DinsRune]

There's a power in these words

[@NightDoge]

Would you happen to know of any similar early recordings regarding French or Spanish? (i am aware of Édouard-Léon Scott's recordings)

[@ABAlphaBeta]

Alfred Dreyfus from the end of the century!

[@NightDoge]

ABAlphaBeta -- He lived that long! Thanks a lot :)

[@elcompagenito3250]

Me trying to talk to my friends on discord

[@jebdunkins6796]

Were these recordings made in 1885?

[@ABAlphaBeta]

Yes!

[@jebdunkins6796]

@@ABAlphaBeta A definite scottish accent can be heard even with the crudeness of the recording.

[@ABAlphaBeta]

@@jebdunkins6796 I'm surprised I don't hear it as definitely as some others posting here - there's obviously a veneer of it, but I genuinely would just have said "Victorian" if I hadn't remembered Bell was from Edinburgh

[@bingbonghafu]

Reminds me of the Charlie Brown teachers talking

[@xodiv3745]

Hahahahshysya

[@ozkul_arda200]

Day 2 of asking AB to read the orkhun inscriptions

[@VictorbrineSC]

Like it or not, this was (if not, one of) the first voice ever recorded in human history... and there he is, immortalized, more than a century after he has left this world

[@mlgodzilla4206]

I’m quite surprised this has some audibility and I hear a type of accent in there

[@zhess4096]

farty fayv

[@rodrigoadrianrodriguezaedo4477]

You should put subtitles to understand what he was saying

[@ABAlphaBeta]

It's what's written in his diary too!

[@jakebustillos9]

Rodrigo Adrián Rodríguez Aedo a real bruh moment

[@ABAlphaBeta]

@@jakebustillos9 Bruh momento numero cinco

[@rodrigoadrianrodriguezaedo4477]

@@ABAlphaBeta Momento bruh número cinco*

[@ABAlphaBeta]

@@rodrigoadrianrodriguezaedo4477 Siiip, porque no era irónico de ninguna manera

[@tjdavis991]

Sounds like whenever the teacher from Peanuts would talk. (Charlie brown)

[@ThePie34567]

WhatsApp calls when callers WiFi is damn shit

[@tofferooni4972]

Alien language.

[@januario8637]

Voice of Alexander graham bell playing free fire

[@Kriegter]

sounds like when theres smth stuck in my speaker

[@tweekerlivesmatter]

*WARBLE INTNSIFIES*

[@stolasish1184]

Charlie brown audio

[@baileyryan488]

It sounds like a funeral march

[@mk-tl8pi]

android be like

[@placeholder8768]

Salvaged from Area 51?

[@robertlozyniak3661]

... and, in a steampunk alternate history, Alexander Graham Bell and Dorr E. Felt collaborated to make the world's first talking calculator.

[@karelwolf998]

Would you some day do an ottoman turkish?