Talking machine

A speaking machine was originally a piece of equipment whose sole purpose was to reproduce the human voice using purely mechanical devices, without the possibility of recording it. In the course of further technical development, along with research into sound, Thomas Alva Edison succeeded in recording speech and tones for the first time in 1877 with the invention of the phonograph , a "novel" speaking machine, and preserving them for later reproduction.

The terminology used is not uniform. While commonly the terms speaking machine , voice machine and speaking machine are used synonymously, some authors differentiate at least between the Termini speech and speech engine , in order to distinguish early concepts of the speech synthesis of apparatus for reproduction of recorded sound: So phonographs were talking machines that speaking machine of Wolfgang von Kempelen or vocal organ Christian Gottlieb scraping stone , however, language machines .

history

Early speaking machines

Late speaking machines

Talking machine as a concept

Talking machine as a torture device in the Auschwitz concentration camp : SS-Oberscharführer Wilhelm Boger developed a torture device, the Boger or parrot swing, which was used to tie the prisoner's hands and feet together, and then hit the prisoner's body with the help of a pole which found its hold in the back of the knees to be pulled up. Boger cynically called this instrument of torture a "speaking machine" because it was intended to encourage every prisoner to "speak" with the aim of forcing confessions.

swell

literature

Herbert Jüttemann : Phonographen und Grammophone , 4th edition, Funk-Verlag Hein, Dessau 2007, ISBN 978-3-939197-17-1 .
Fabian Brackhane: "Can anything sound more natural than Vox humana?" - A contribution to the history of the mechanical speech synthesis Phonus 18 (= research reports of the Institute for Phonetics of the University of Saarland), dissertation, University of Saarland, Saarbrücken 2015.

Individual evidence

↑ Fabian Brackhane: "Can anything sound more natural than Vox humana?" - A contribution to the history of mechanical speech synthesis , S. XIX
↑ Gerhard Mauz: Where the son has to drown the father. In: Der Spiegel 29/1964. Spiegel, July 15, 1964, accessed on September 18, 2018 (link to the 1964 issue, published on the Spiegel Online website).

Web links

The speaking machine in Pieper's Universal Lexicon 4th edition 1857-1865 . Retrieved November 23, 2017.
The speaking machine in Meyer's Großes Konversations-Lexikon 6th edition 1905-1909 . Retrieved November 23, 2017.

[1] Fabian Brackhane: "Can anything sound more natural than Vox humana?" - A contribution to the history of mechanical speech synthesis , S. XIX

[2] Gerhard Mauz: Where the son has to drown the father. In: Der Spiegel 29/1964. Spiegel, July 15, 1964, accessed on September 18, 2018 (link to the 1964 issue, published on the Spiegel Online website).