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.
@@train_go_boom2065there are plenty of photos like that, but most would be in personal collections or not as popular since they are not seen as defining historical pictures. In the 1800s, however, it took a lot longer to actually take a photo so it would be hard to capture moments like that without being severely blurred from movement
Reminds me specifically of this picture of a Chinese farmer smiling and striking a pose because he was unfamiliar with the custom of photographs being serious at the time.
Indeed. These recordings of the early 1860s are under 30 years before my great-grandfather was born (1889, only 23-24 years after the US Civil War)... and I was born in the 2000s.
It's even more haunting when you realise the voice belongs to someone who basically has ceased to exist altogether, as both they're grave is unmarked and they're far from living memory. It's a solemn reminder that most of us will simply be forgotten after 200 years.
I found them quite joyful. Like listening to a child try out a new toy. Personally stuff like this connects me to the past and reminds me that people were, are, and will always be people.
It's scary that a century ago was the mid-20s. So strange. If someone said something was a century ago, I'm thinking fin de siècle at the latest. Just think that nobody alive today was born in the 19th Century. That's wild.
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.
He actually was forgotten though, for a significant period of time. We uncovered facts and were able to recreate his voice, but for quite some time, he vanished from the world and only his family and friends remembered him.
My grandmother was born in 1885. I was born in 1961. She attended my wedding in 1978. She died in 1985 at the age of 100. My grandfather was born in 1875, but he died before I was born. Anyway, I got an up-close view of history from grandma. She was 33 when WWI was over. When the Great Depression hit, she was 44. Her youth was spent without "flying machines," radios, televisions, let alone the technology we enjoy today. She regaled me with tales of her riding standing up on the back of her horse, racing steam engines over the plains of Kansas. What a thrill! I was so privileged to know her.
Fascinating, always find family history like this really interesting and how we can see the sweep of time through just a few generations. My own grandma was born in 1909, I was born in 87. I had conversations with her in the early 2000s before she died in 05 about the first world war and her early memories. She told me that she remembered speaking to a man in the village who had spoke to his grandfather about his participation in the battle of Waterloo in 1815. Blows your mind
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.
I think Field Marshal Von Moltke would be truly surprised if he found out that 134 years later in 2023. People would be hearing him speak his message to the present. I bet there was a part of him who expected that recording to be treated as a throwaway curiosity. Especially once it reached its way back to Edison. I also don't think he had any idea how right, if almost prophetic, he would be with his choice of words.
Meanwhile Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville died thinking people would never get the opportunity to properly appreciate his invention as he originally intended. How oddly fitting that over 140 years later. He would get his wish that people would one day be able to visually make use his recording. Except instead of us being able to read it like writing as he intended/expected. We were instead able to make visual scans of the recording and convert them into something that could actually be listened to. Even giving us a chance to actually hear him. Just like how Edison could do with recordings on his phonograph.
Fun fact: Until the discovery of a recording of Helmuth von Moltke in 2012, Lajos Kossuth, a Hungarian nobleman/statesman etc. was the person with the earliest birth date from whom a sound recording was known (he was born in 1802).
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.
That’s wild! I had to check Napoleon’s lifespan (1769-1821) and compared it to your great grandmother (born approximately 1870). That gap in time blows my mind.
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.
F Scott Fitzgerald did some recordings that way, some shop you could walk in and do it as a novelty one drunken night - I believe they're the only recordings of his voice.
Disk recording booths were common at amusement parks, arcades and galleries. Servicemen recorded and mailed messages to families, you could sing, recite, etc. (There's a Flintstones episode where Fred pretends he's a jazz artist and records "Mockingbird" as "Rockin' Bird".) Neil Young used one in 2014 to record messages to his dead mother and sing Ochs, Jansch, Springsteen and Dylan standards, on an album called _A Letter Home_ . There was a home version of the machine too. I've seen the little white discs they used. Some could be played on regular record players.
Intuitively, yes. But time really is just one piece. It's not, conceptually, weirder to listen to the words of von Moltke then it is to listen to those of Neil Armstrong, Ronald Reagan or Kurt Cobain.
Imagine, people from the year 3023 will watch you typing this comment. They will see me sitting on the floor in russian appartments near the river typing my comment and drinking hot cocoa. We can't hide from people of the future. They will see us through the photon traces and emitting of space-time continuum. Now this is creepy) "Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord." Jeremiah 23:24
“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.
Yes, I’m 69 and conversed with my Great Grandmother born in 1871; which I’ve thought is amazing that she probably learned Spontaneous Generation in Science Class.
"The telephone makes it possible for a man who has already lain long in the grave to once again raise his voice and greet the present." Wow...just wow. It's all I can say to something so poetic.
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
People don't really realize just how *slowly* language actually evolves. While it might be a bit different, I have no doubt that most people who speak English can read and understand most of English from the 1800's.
@@pabblo1 It is. Sure, there are some grammar and word diferences, and unless you're reading something like Shakespeare (yes, I know he's earlier than 1700's, just need an example of a more antique English) with a ton of different intricacies, you're going to be surprisingly ok.
@@ikarly2898 That's a lot higher of a percentage than I would've expected. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that Spain, as far as I know, hasn't had major language reform since then. What caused Spanish's lack of a change from then to now?
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.
I can't help but love that "The Great Silent One" is somehow the oldest recorded human voice surviving. And that was a very nice, clear recording, too., given the technology.
I like that he was "silent in seven languages." When I was a teen and in my 20s I was shy and silent. Around ,27 yrs old or so, I realized that most of the people talking the loudest around me were saying far inferior things than I had to offer, do I stopped being bashful and silent from then on.
This is why I’m a collector of Phonographs To be able to listen to voices long dead on a machine more than 115 years old It’s important to preserve such history, keeping ghosts of the past alive for future generations
The Moltke recording is super interesting, not just because he's the earliest born man to ever have his voice recorded, but also because he was entirely aware that this recording may outlive him and that people might listen to it long after his death. It's also remarkable just how much the sound quality had improved in such a short span of time. The earlier recordings in this video had so much static that you could only make out a few individual words but this one is almost entirely clear and comprehensible (if you speak german, anyways).
As a German; It's as clear as it can be (considering that this is the earliest recording of a voice there is) and I could understand all of it clearly.
In that recording when he refers to the device as the telephone, that is a bit of poetic justice, because it was work by Alexander Graham Bell that led to the better sounding and more durable wax cylinder. Bell was also developing some of the earliest disc based recording systems.
@@peterc4082 How could that generalization be true? Lineages can't be expected to die out. For "all" the relatives to die out, a lineage would have to be extraordinarily unlucky. When people do family history research, they're typically able to find the burial places of their relatives from centuries before. Often, the inscriptions left on the gravestones are some of the most reliable evidence for that research, even.
I don't see the creepyness a lot of people are commenting about here. To be greeted from the past by a figure like Field Marshall von Moltke feels like a privilege, one that only people alive now can experience. Thank you for posting this...
To people on youtube everything old is "creepy". VHS recordings are creepy, old malls are creepy, hotel corridors are creepy. If not creepy, it's...ugh.."cursed".
7:59 This guy is literally playing the trumpet straight into the mic, messes up the rhyme, and laughs about it. This is just as silly as people have ever been. Today, this would have been a pretty good streaming clip or something. Surely no one thinks it creepy.
Agreed, the only thing I've found creepy about old records are those like old 19th photos of dead people 💀. Now that would be an appropriate use if the word "creepy", very strange custom indeed ☠️
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.
@@I_Will_Steal_Your_Kneecaps She wasn't born until 1897 and passed in 2001. My fathers side live pretty long lives. My grandfathers 4 oldest sons "my dads 4 oldest brothers" all fought in WWII and the last one passed fairly recent. They all lived into their mid/late 90s. My father was 20+ years younger than the 4 oldest brothers. I was very fortunate to be raised by uncles that fought in WWII and even one great uncle that fought in WW1. When I was young I thought it was odd that a lot of my family members were so old. It was great though because they all took me hunting, fishing and to work on their farms all the time. Then I had 3 12-15 year older brothers and sister because he had me later in life. So yeah, I was by far the youngest.
Similar situation. One g-grandfather was born in Georgia in 1826. He had my grandmother (his 16th child by two wives) in 1889 when he was 63 and my g-grandma was 38. My grandmother was 41 when she had my dad in 1930. I was born in 1965. I always tell people, “I’m barely here”.
If I ever got a time machine, I would love to go back in time and tell the gentleman at 8:30 that people would still be smiling at hearing his laughter 145 years later.
If you ever got a time machine you'd be making surreptitious visual and sound recordings of the people and things of the period with today's gear (or better hardware you might have nicked from the future).
I remember watching a documentary on a group of researchers who hypothesized that pots made by scraping a brush across it's surface could allow us to listen to conversations the ancient Roman women who were making the pots, were having. They thought the sound waves could slightly vibrate the brushes and plant a sound wave on the soft clay pot. Unfortunately, it didn't result in anything, but can you imagine if something like that existed??
If someone happened to make one long and continuous stroke, that would be plausible. The issue would be that if the stroke was not at a constant rate it would be quite a pain to find out the varying playback speed. At the present moment, we can hear conversations (maybe even those that have already passed, but I forget, depends how long the plant is in motion) by looking at a plant through a window of another building due to slight variation in the movement of its leaves and this audio technology is only getting better. Edit: found what I meant ruclips.net/video/FKXOucXB4a8/видео.html
It does sound plausible-but the mystery to me is why it took so long for the phonograph to be invented, since all the principles-constant wheel rotation, materials like wax or foil, well-machined screws to move the stylus-were there for quite some time before anyone thought of recording sound.
The old strategist knew exactly what it all meant in the grand scheme of things. He was talking into a machine knowing full well he really was talking to future, yet unborn, generations.
I am german from formerly Prussia and the fact that I could understand every word the General said without looking at the subtitles is wild, such good sound, he sounded just like any old men today. I thought about why he said almost the exact same sentence twice...the second time he twisted a few words so that it sounds a tiny bit more correct, elegant and sophisticated, like a written text. There was probably a lot of thought about what to say behind it and no chance to delete the first imperfect try.
I have to admit how impressed and surprised I was to actually be greeted by a person from when this technology was just beginning to be mastered. It's really something to consider that people have been reaching out across distances so vast for so long. From fire signals and the written word to phonographs and photos. And now in the digital age and mass availability our voices are everywhere and indefinite. We even have a probe carrying pieces of our shared history and culture careening into space.
These voices belonged to people who lived full lives. They loved, they had thoughts and feelings. They belong to a soul who’s passed but who’s voice will never die.
What saddens me, is that so many relatives of mine passed away without having ever left a audio record of their speech or even a video of them in life, when these technologies were widely available during their lifetimes. I think many people just assume that their existence isn't very important and won't be valued by their loved ones when they are gone, but they would be wrong. I value the few voicemails I have saved of my grandmother and my mother, and I find it comforting to hear their voices again.
My mom was a singer/musician. She passed in 2001. When my dad passed in 2019, I found a cassette tape of my mom singing radio jingles and jazz songs in 1964-65. The tape still works in my tape player. My mom had a beautiful singing voice and I'm so happy I can still hear her. I need to get the recordings digitized.
I had a few stories that papaw told us that i recorded. I suffered a major pc hardware malfunction and lost them some years ago :( we had a voicemail machine that would mess up after a call and would fill up the cassette, recording the room. I found one of my you ger brothers playing and you can hear laughter, a thud where someone fell off the couch and my grandma both scolding and soothing lol.
I know how you feel. I never met my grandmother, but I had hoped that when my parents’ wedding videos were digitized I’d finally know what her voice sounded like. Sadly there was no clear recording of her voice. I’m heartbroken, but I am at least grateful for all the photos and videos of her.
As a History nerd, I can't properly describe the emotions I felt when hearing the actual voice of the friggin' Von Moltke. I never thought I'd have the opportunity to fangirl a man who died in 1891.
Von Moltke the younger, who started WW1, only got his job because of the reputation of the Elder. Having started the war, he collapsed with a nervous breakdown, having understood what he’d started
Aren't both Austria AND Russia more culpable for WW1 than Germany?? Austria : First country to declare war Russia : First Country to declare war on another Superpower with a complex entangling alliances, also the First Country to declare war because of a Treaty Germany didn't initiate anything Germany was just doing exactly what Russia did; Germany was "blamed" simply because of their strength and cohesion at the time made the the most formidable force in Europe @@Richard-yd1ws
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
It is also the content of his words. He said it in a way, knowing future generations will hear them, making him the "Voice from beyond the grave". As if he wanted to greet the future people hearing him. It's awesome in a way and creepy. But very positive
What I find very interesting is that with the recording of Moltke as well as with Bismarck or the Kaiser, you hear the prussian flair in their speech. A very particular way of pronouncing words sadly not around anymore. At least for the majority of the people.
I don't know why, but hearing this old man telling in my mother language that he's greeting the present from 1889, which is 99 years before I was born, brings tears to my eyes.
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
There's a poetic irony in the fact that von Moltke did exactly what he praised the phonograph to make possible: raise his voice once more, although being long since burried.
he was 89 at the time, he knew his life was coming to an end soon-ish and maybe the topic he spoke about influenced the fact that it survived (we are less likely to throw away things we find to be profound).
As a former German Officer I learned a lot about Helmuth von Moltke. But never in my life I would've thought that I'd be able to actually hear his voice with my own ears. Technology truly is something magnificent. Thank you for this very interesting video.
My grandfather was born in 1892 and lived to age 96. The changes he saw are unmatched by any generation in all of of mankind's existence. He was born into a world that hadn't changed significantly in hundreds of years, and died in a world totally unrecognizable to all who lived before. Hearing the laughter on that one recording was really special. Thank you for this intriguing and educational video!
The world had changed a lot in the century before he was born. Look at transportation - from horses being the fastest way to travel to trains and other powered vehicles. Ships were no longer dependent on wind. How about communication? The invention of the telegraph and the laying of transoceanic cables meant news could reach the other side of the world in minutes instead of months. Look it up. There's way more than that.
@@bl3313 For the common man, especially those in rural areas, life didn't change as drastically until the start of the 20th century as you make it sound.
I can think of the earliest born person who i met was my mother’s step mother’s mother or more simply my step grandmothers mother. It was in 1988. I remember her well. She was kind. She played with me on the floor with my little toy cars. She was born in 1890. When i got older in 2004, i met a 106 year old while volunteering at an old persons home. These are the kinda memories that stick with you as you age. Knowing that so many generations are lost but you the opportunity to speak with someone of that era!!
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.
Moltke was born in 1800, and although rare at that time people lived to be 100. Moltke could have come in contact with someone born in the late 1600s, who could have come in contact with someone from the 1500s. That is just crazy
@@falconeshieldLmao? Only ONE person has ever been confirmed to have lived to or above 120, it was obviously a woman, because women live longer on average. Also, all 10 of the oldest people are women. 6/10 of the oldest people died in the 21st century, after 2010. If you skew to just the oldest men, who don't even make the top 10 oldest people; most of them died in the 2000s, pre-2010, but if we are counting all 2000s+, then 8/10 of the oldest men died in the modern era. If sorting by All of the longest living people since 1954, by age when oldest; the top 10 had 8 die after 2000, and 7 of those 8 were dead after 2010. If we look at Unverified claims (With complete birthdates), your point gets washed away; All 10 of the 10 oldest Unverified claims with complete birthdates were dead in 2020+ I cannot find a single study that states humans would live to 160+ by 2030 or whatever; studies into maximal longevity indicate a potential maximum human lifespan, an early 1930s study suggested there was no maximal lifespan. Unusually, you have one study that supports what you stated; it claims in it's abstract: "Here, by analysing global demographic data, we show that improvements in survival with age tend to decline after age 100, and that the age at death of the world’s oldest person has not increased since the 1990s." This is of course; immediately disproven by my above examples, but there is a study which did exactly what you did (look at the oldest person and when they died and basically just go "welp"). I'm prone to NON demographics studies, because demographics only tell you what has happened so far. Studies into the maximal age determined by basal metabolic oxygen utilization in heart tissue, which indicates a maximum lifespan of 125 years for athletes that have a VO²max of 50-60 at 20 years old, continue to train into their late ages, to maintain the rate of decline of their VO²Max. So I can't even really fathom what you're insinuating; lifespans have gotten longer on average, that's an undeniable fact.
@@falconeshield Jeanne Calment might not even have been that old. There's speculation that she was the actual Jeanne Calment's daughter that took on her dead mother's identity for some tax reason.
It's crazy to think Moltke's words actually make sense with what we think listening back to it: "The telephone makes it possible for a man who has already lain long in the grave once again to raise his voice and greet the present." He truly has lain long in the grave for over 100 years only for his voice to be heard again long after.
This last message put such a big smile on my face... it's like I got greeted by someone who was truly remarkable! Who not even in his wildest dreams could imagine millions or persons over 100 years later, would hear his greeting to "the present". It truly puts "time passing by" into a whole different perspective.
Also endearing that his statement there is completely wrong and he repeats it with the correct "phonograph" after a youngster explains it to him. Still, not a bad grasp of cutting-edge tech for a 90+ year old.
Reminds me of The Beatles song Your Mother Should Know “Let’s all get up and dance to a song that was a hit before your mother was born” The song is even more meta nowadays because IT IS the song that was a hit before my mother was born that I am now getting up and dancing to. Aged like fine wine
Brilliant history. So glad that some recordings were recovered from obscure archives. Well done. Perhaps modern digitalisation can make them clearly audible .
I'm 52. I remember my nans neighbour when I was a small child. She was nearly 100 years old so was born around 1876, almost 150 years ago. She was always nice to me giving me bars of chocolate or a 50 pence piece which to me as a little kid seemed a fortune. She died around 1977, not long after she reached 100. Just think, her grandparents would have been born during the Georgian period long before Victoria came to the throne. We live so close to the 19th and 18th centuries even though they seem the distant past. Listening to our ancestors voices is truly fascinating so thanks for adding this to RUclips.
We are removed from them due to time but humans are still humans no matter the time. We all have that favorite tune that we cant get out of our heads. Bless these great Men.
This is something I love about all kinds of media from the past (recordings, photographs, paintings, writing, etc.). It shows that while culture and technology may undergo massive changes through time, people are still people. Whether it's ancient Roman writers complaining about "kids these days" or Victorians taking silly photos, the human experience never really changes.
@@StarchildMagic A Roman barkeep goes about his day, eats a breakfast of eggs with pork and beans and a fresh bun, he goes to the spa, stops by the barber, has a nice walk on the sea shore, stops by the local fast food joint for a quick soup lunch with mussels, then he goes and opens his bar for the afternoon while complaining to those who will listen about kids these days, ruining proper latin with all these foreign words they pick up while on campaign, then goes to bed after dinner with his family. Yep, the particulars might change, but being human rhymes true time and time again.
@@SStupendous you never hear old veterans calling newer soldiers kids? Admittedly, the guy wrote there would have been a civilian, so yeah prolly wouldn't be in a position to consider any soldier a kid within his culture, but yeah. I might also be misunderstanding the term "campaign", but I did write that comment in like 10 seconds, not claiming to be Shakespeare here lol.
There is a museum in Germany that recorded the voices and many different accents of the English prisoners of war from WWI! I think they were overlooked and so were accidentally kept instead of being destroyed, and of course they are a priceless resource of great historical importance now.
I remember this because they also recorded voices of French prisonners so when it was rediscovered it made the news here. A treasure trove of local accents, folk songs and testimonies.
@@yellowsyellows9150 Richard E Grant's speech-coach wife, June Washington (I think that was her name; she died a year or so ago), put a video on RUclips about those recordings a few years ago so you can track them down/listen to them on here. What was incredible about those prisoner recordings to me, a Brit, was just how strong the regional accents the English soldiers had were - something you don't hear very much today when a kind of generic "estuary" English is spoken up and down the land - and also how many of the soldiers pronounced the word "father" as "ferrther", even ones who came from completely different parts of the country and who otherwise had completely different accents from each other. Just weird. But also fascinating to hear something you just don't hear now.
Hearing that man recite nursery rhymes and be so upbeat and laughing, made me laugh out loud as well. It was genuinely wholesome, and actually brings to mind a different time, it really did make me feel like I am at the past for a bit.
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.
Yeah music is awesome and always will be! I love art to. It is cool that the common song length of 2-3 minutes was a product of how much the phonograph could store!
I had only heard "Au Clair De La Lune" from 1860 before, never the other two recordings. Very interesting not only to actually hear them for the first time, but see the story of Scott de Martinville in such detail. Read about him but never knew his story to this detail. Great video, I'm here ever since the similar one about Girault de Prangey's early 1840s photographs.
@SStupendous - Thank you for saying what I would have liked to have said, but couldn't ever manage to say anywhere _NEARLY_ as well. *_YOU_** said this all **_VERY,_** VERY WELL!*
@@dixietenbroeck8717 Thank you too for your appreciation. I love this channel, it's everything I wish I could do if I have the time, the editing and script is top notch and actual history at a point when YT is full of bot channels and complete trash purposely spreading misinformation.
It raises the hair on the back of my neck to hear those fragile voices from so long ago and so far away...Those people lived and strove and loved and died ages before we came along, and yet we can hear them now. Amazing--thank you for sharing!
As a German, born 100 years after the recording of Moltke, it sends chills to my spine hearing his message. He actually understood what this invention would be capable of. This is proof of just how much humanity can accomplish. Why if shy don’t er always use our potential for only the good…
@@frontenac5083 Considering you feel the need to go around correcting others on their use of "German", you should realize that not capitalizing the 'G' is not a spelling error, it is a grammatical error. Just as misplacing a comma or apostrophe would not be a spelling error, not capitalizing 'G' in German is not a spelling error.
Bartok, the Hungarian composer went around recording folk songs to preserve his culture. These original recordings taken on wax cylinder still exist today and Bartok transcribed them for string orchestra. They go by the name The Romanian Folk Dances.
These hyper-emotional leddit comments are ridiculous. Yes, my German cousins think ahead and include after we die. What's weird are people who don't think ahead.
Even though Moltke‘s German might seem almost identical to Standard German nowadays, there are actually a couple subtle differences present, which might even escape a native speakers ears, would they not listen carefully. 2 to be exact. 1. The “eu” was still pronounced as a combination of “e” + “u” (as you can hear in “1889” & “neueste”), in todays Standard German, this sound has mellowed out into an “oi” (you’d pronounce “9” as “noin” & “neu” as “noi” in Standard German today) 2. The long/stressed “e” was still pronounced closed, instead of open like it is now. This one is tricky to put into words, but stress (vowel length) in German always lands on the first vowel of the stem/core word. So as an example, “geben” (to give) always has the stress on the first vowel, and causing it to be pronounced long [gében]. Even if you inflect the word differently, like in “gegeben” (he/she/it gave), the stress would still be [gegében], since “ge-“ is only a prefix indicating the past, and not part of the core word. Now here’s where the difference makes itself known. In todays Standard German, a stressed “long e” isn’t just an unstressed “short e” and just pronounced longer (take the “e” in “Essen”, pronounce it artificially long, then try to insert it as the first “e” in “geben), it’s evolved into a completely different sound entirely, similarly to how the French and Hungarians pronounce their long “é”. When Moltke says “erh[é]bt” (from “h[é]ben, “er-“ is a prefix) and “G[é]genwart”, you can clearly tell he’s putting the stress correctly and lengthening the word, but the “e” is still pronounced “closed” (much like Slavic languages still do today) and not yet “open” like in modern German.
Very interesting. In Spanish, naturally, when saying Deutschland, we say it like Moltke did. So if I were to travel back in time and talk to Moltke, and say Deutschland or words with that same sound, I would be correct, whereas today I have to say "oi" like when I heard Angela Merkel say the name: Doitschland. Or well, Deutschland or whatever name it was used for it then, perhaps just name "Deutsche" or whatever for whatever context.
@@EnemaoftheState Pretty much this. If anyone from ancient times right up to the 1990s were told that one day everyone would carry a handheld device that could immediately access the entirety of human knowledge, they would think that such a device would herald a new golden age, pushing back the frontiers of human understanding. Instead we have Tiktok dances and OnlyFans 🙄
Amazing that Moltke (going on 90!) was the only person recording his voice who fully comprehended the potential of the invention of the phonograph. To the others the machine seems to have been a mere curiosity or toy. (To be honest, that´s what social media are for 95% of us today, still.)
To be a man of Moltke’s calibre, you had to understand the potential of modern technology. Just as he pioneered mobile warfare strategy, along with Schlieffen.
Terrible man. Prussians were horrible and they led to German militarism and Hitler and so much misery. The rest of the Germans are a more peaceful bunch, Prussia was the nasty one on account of the Teutonic knights who were real thugs.
So the earliest voice ever is of field marshal von moltke a man so old and famous... A man that has lived so long that when he was 15 years old napoleon had just return from elba to france....a man that has lived so long that when he was even born that not even my earliest known ancestor was and yet we still manage to record his voice Amazing...both amazing and astonishing
An even crazier thing about generations : If you interacted with an 80 year old when you were 10, and that this 80 year old had himself interacted with an elder when he was young, if we repeat that, we get 2000 years crossed with only 20 people. That absolutely blows my mind, that I am technically 20 people away from the Roman empire, and another 20 from the year 4000. Makes you realize how closed together history is when compared to the span of a dozen generations
LOVE your videos, love them…this kind of historical origins of recorded sight and sound just lights up my brain…as a history junkie I could watch these kind of videos all night long! Thank you for taking the time to compile and research this amazing information ; well done!
Moltke wasn't even wrong when he said (rather than "phonograph") "telephone". After all, those now listening to him will mostly be able to do so via the Internet.
Imagine if he had a real weird moment and accidentally called the phonograph the internet, and it became some sort of folk name for a mythical communication invention until researchers actually starting the internet decided to use the name to call it the internet. 🤔
Wow ….. Moltke - every single word clear to understand. Unbelievable - but well deserved by this man who was far more than only a successful Fieldmarshall - Great! Dear Helmuth, thank you for your greetings - will reply when we meet on the other side! 🎉
Same! It's so sweet that he specifically wants to "greet the present" wherever it might be Soon we will be the past, too, and his greeting. to the present continues to move with time 💛
Well the last one isn’t all that creepy, if anything it’s quite inspiring. However, the first few recordings were kind of eerie just because of the sound distortion combined with the nursery rhyme style of music. It just sounds like something you’d hear in an antique horror show. I could definitely see someone using the audio for a horror video game in the future.
“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.” Absolute chills. How right he was by the views on this video.
It's so nice hearing people from the past laugh and sing. We always just see these emotionless photos of them and black and white photos but they were just people. They would laugh and cry and tell jokes and everything we do today.
Thank you Herr Von Moltke for allowing your voice to be preserved for future generations so that we inhabitants of the 21st century could listen to it played back in all its glory, Rest in Peace old soldier
To hear von Moltke's voice and the greatings he gives is just remarkebell, I myself am German and I love history. Learning about the fact that not only the voice of one of the great Military minds of his time is still living on but that he is also the oldest voice ever heard again is from every point of view just so fascinating! Thank you for this educational video and the best greatings from Germany 🇩🇪
Yeah, like it’s just people we’re hearing after all. Now if we were to discover recordings from another planet entirely? THAT would be creepy (still cool though.)
It is, but I can understand people being a little creeped out. Imagine that in the future, humans re-discover a voice message you sent to your friend. During life you'd never had imagined that audio would survive for hundreds of years.
I wish we would've been able to hear people from farther back. It would've been so fascinating to hear the old languages and what they thought and how they thought. And how they sounded! Inflections clearly change with time.
@@Cactusgamer303 Metatron made a video about how English evolved from different stages, and made a guess about how English might sound in the future. It's called "How Weird Would Modern English Sound To A Medieval English Person?".
I loved that recording of nursery rhymes. He seemed so happy. It's nice being able to relieve history in that way. History has always been interesting to me . But it really clicks with something tangible, audible or visible. That's why I collect coins, old records, paintings and some books. My oldest book is from the late 1700s around the time of the revolutionary war. My oldest coin is from 200 A.D. these are my most prized collections. I feel like im there in the past with them.
Helmut von Moltke was aware that this "in der Tat staunenswerte Erfindung" Edison invented, would become popular. He choose or read wise words and i think he would be proud if he knew that someone born over 200 years after him still hears his message in his language. Danke Euch, Herr von Moltke!
Before this video, I believe one of the earliest known recordings of a voice I've heard was that of Queen Victoria, who was born in 1819. This video brought us the knowledge that there is a recording of a man of much historical fame, and was born one year after George Washington passed away. History is incredible. It really is. These people actually lived and walked the earth well over 200 years ago. It makes us all wonder what they were like in person.
I suspect videos (maybe this video) will survive centuries because the content is so valuable and so timeless! Few efforts are worth as much as this one!
I find it quite ironic, that of all the people who have lived through the 18th century, the only one to have his voice heard again centuries later, was not a man of many words during his own life. Indeed very fascinating, and beautiful
I was born in 1996 and my great grandparents on my mom's side were born in 1896, and I think that's really cool! Sadly they died before my birth and no one recorded their voices. Super cool to hear such old voices on this video though!
It's almost as if there people are trying to say something important to us, imagining someone in the future will remember their voices. It's both haunting and fascinating to hear these recordings. Thank you for exposing them
As a German, hearing Bismarck, who is, at least for me, a national and historic hero and person to look up to, almost made me tear up when I first heard it a couple of years ago. The recording of Friedrich Wilhelm II. is almost as important to me. Especially considering when he recorded his speech and what he said. Also; it's the first time I hear Moltke talk and it's, considering when it was recorded, so damn clear to me. I can actually understand him word for word. That's just haunting. 134 year old recording... The first world war, the forceful end to a thousand year old history of monarchs in Germany, the Weimar Republic, the third Reich, the second world war, millions of deaths, the overtaking of Germany by America, France, GB and Russia, the loss of territories, the splitting up of Germany into 4 zones, then into 2 and finally in 1990 back to one country. During that time we've gone through Monarchy, first democracy, national socialism, being ruled over by different nations, socialism in the east, social market economy in the west and finally social market economy in all of Germany with a representitive democracy and a supranational entity called European union. That's just bizarre to think about what my ancestors went through in such a short period of time.
It’s impressive your family is still in Germany after all of that. My family left Ireland in the late 1800’s, then my dad even left Scotland eventually due to religious oppression and difficulty living as a Catholic (in 1963). So in about 100 years my family history is mostly lost and I have no idea if anyone alive knows our family tree
@@krusher181 My family tree can be tracked back to the 1600s on my mother's side and to the 1750s on my father's side. All of them have been in Germany, more specifically in the Niederrhein region close to the netherlands. Just the house I currently live in has been built by my family in 1859. I'm currently in the room where my great-grandmother grew up in in the late 1800s. Just these bricks surrounding me tell the story of my family. I'm honestly glad to live and know where my roots are and I'm even more glad to look like it as well. I can proudly say that I'm fully German. I have the biggest respect for my family for sticking to Germany through thick and thin. It's sad knowing what many Europeans have been through in the past though. Hoping for a time where everyone can live in peace without politics or economics ripping apart whole family histories.
Oh look, an early christmas present from Kings and Things! :D I'm glad you picked up my suggestion, and I have to say that this video is really a piece of art - editing, images, music, everything is really beautiful and artistic. And the end with Moltke's voice recording was just perfect. Thank you for giving us these wonderful videos and for putting so much work into them! ❤
I think the most impressive part,is how the first recorded sound, was transform into a digital form. I really wished more records from the past,regardless of form, gets into digital form someday,both for preservation and access to it
A very interesting recording is of Józef Piłsudski's voice. He's marvelling about how he's speaking to a metal tube and how in the future his grandkids will hear some bizzare device speaking with his voice.
@@peterc4082 This is a common misconception, but Prussian militarism has nothing to do with the NSDAP. Hitler was from Austria, and the NSDAP had its roots in München, Bavaria. In fact, many of the Prussian elite, for example Paul von Hindenburg himself, despised Hitler and the "plebeian brown movement". And if you look at the members of the resistance group around Oberst von Stauffenberg, you'll find many people from the old Prussian Officers Corps. It almost reads like the "who-is-who" of the old Prussian Army including many famous families who served Prussia since the days of Frederick the Great (Friedrich der Große): von Witzleben, von Tresckow, von Quirnheim, von Gersdorf and even Helmuth Moltke's great-grandnephew: Helmuth James von Moltke. All of them were executed after the failed attempt to take Hitler's life, and are now remembered as some of the few, who actually tried to do something against the Nazis. And for your interest: there was another (civilian) resistance group called the "Kreisauer Kreis" (= Circle of Kreisau). And why was it called that way? Because its headquarter was at the Moltke estate Kreisau -- the same we have just seen in this video, where the older Moltke recorded this message to Edison...! So you see: the Moltke family was even a central part of the resistance against Hitler! Please inform yourself a bit better, before posting such nonsense as "the Prussian militarism gave us the NSDAP". It is rather the other way around: the Nazi propaganda was very skillful in presenting themselves as the "true successors" of old Prussia and drawing a straight line from Friedrich to Bismarck to Hitler..., but that was just propaganda to deceive the masses. (Apparently that propaganda was quite successful, if people today still believe it...) But the truth is, that the NSDAP (and many leading party members like Hitler, Göring and Hess) had their roots in southern Germany/Bavaria/Austria. (Though of course once it had gained in power, people from all parts of Germany - including Prussia - joined in large numbers...)
@@ulrichschmidt5559 Prussian militarism gave us to the rigid tradition of obedience which led the Germans to follow Hitler blindly and pack people off in concentration camps. I know there were 'resistance' groups but they were few and far between and the Germans by the large were happy to engage in the second as well as the first and even prior wars. Likewise the whole German establishment under Bismarck was RACIST to the core and oppressed Poles and others. So please kindly you educate yourself better. It also does you no good to know that many Nazi and non Nazi war German war criminals were let off scott free. For example the scumbags who burnt the surrendering Polish postal workers in the Gdansk/Danzin Post Office were never prosecuted by the West Germans. Have a good day.
@@ulrichschmidt5559 My people had to endure generations of racist oppression, from the 19th to the early 20th century and the most extreme form in the war years. It's nice to list a group of names but none of these people actually did what they did before the war, they only attempted to assassinate Hitler when the war was starting to go badly. We know there is a long tradition of German militarism which has ugly tendencies, as with assistance the Turks had with the Armenian genocides or the way the Herero people were treated in Namibia. Thanks but your response is not relevant.
@@peterc4082 Dear Peter, you do have a number of valid points here, I do not deny those, I only object to your statement "the Prussian militarism ultimately gave us the NSDAP", because it is wrong. The roots of the NSDAP are in Bavaria, and Hitler's racism was formed in his days in Vienna, so it is basically an "Austrian flavor" of racism that grew in the Austrian-Hungarian multi-ethnic empire around 1900, which had lots of problems due to the fact that it had citizens with Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Serbian, Croatian, Italian, etc... nationality within its border. *So this has nothing to do with Prussia.* (If you don't believe me, read Ian Kershaw's excellent Hitler biography. He explains the roots of the NSDAP and of Hitler's racism very well. And he is a British historian, so you can probably count on his "objectiveness".) I want to add a few more points to your other statements, but I'll do this in separate posts, because they are not related to the question "where did the NSDAP come from".
My grandma is 80 years old. She made a point that the 1800s weren’t really that long ago and she’s right because when she was born the 1800s were only 40 years before she was born her mother was born in the very early 1900s and her grandmother was born in the 1800s so she knew people in her life that were born in the late 1800s, lots of people in her life were born then but in my perspective I was born over 40 years after she was it seems like a long time to me but now kids are saying the 80s 1980s were a long time ago. The perspective is different the older you get.
I don’t usually comment, but this video and especially the beautiful message by Moltke got me emotional. It is incredible to hear this people’s voices and. Thanks for the video
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
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 how hard he’s laughing, he’s clearly having the time of his life
Yeah like the example of a allied soldier mocking hitler after he was killed in ww2
@@train_go_boom2065there are plenty of photos like that, but most would be in personal collections or not as popular since they are not seen as defining historical pictures. In the 1800s, however, it took a lot longer to actually take a photo so it would be hard to capture moments like that without being severely blurred from movement
Reminds me specifically of this picture of a Chinese farmer smiling and striking a pose because he was unfamiliar with the custom of photographs being serious at the time.
@@vaderbuckeye36 Yes i know that photograph, wonderful thing really.
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.
Indeed. These recordings of the early 1860s are under 30 years before my great-grandfather was born (1889, only 23-24 years after the US Civil War)... and I was born in the 2000s.
@@SStupendous crazy id’nit?
It's even more haunting when you realise the voice belongs to someone who basically has ceased to exist altogether, as both they're grave is unmarked and they're far from living memory.
It's a solemn reminder that most of us will simply be forgotten after 200 years.
I found them quite joyful. Like listening to a child try out a new toy. Personally stuff like this connects me to the past and reminds me that people were, are, and will always be people.
It's scary that a century ago was the mid-20s. So strange. If someone said something was a century ago, I'm thinking fin de siècle at the latest.
Just think that nobody alive today was born in the 19th Century. That's wild.
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.
He said he had nothing to leave his sons but his good name. In actuality, he left us all his voice.
@@irregularassassin6380truly shows that even if you are forgotten at one point. Sometimes it's not exactly permanent.
He actually was forgotten though, for a significant period of time. We uncovered facts and were able to recreate his voice, but for quite some time, he vanished from the world and only his family and friends remembered him.
@@morpheas768 Nerd emote ^ no shit he was forgotten, OP is just saying that even in the end he is remembered
Yo mama's wishes were certainly fulfilled.
My grandmother was born in 1885. I was born in 1961. She attended my wedding in 1978. She died in 1985 at the age of 100. My grandfather was born in 1875, but he died before I was born. Anyway, I got an up-close view of history from grandma. She was 33 when WWI was over. When the Great Depression hit, she was 44. Her youth was spent without "flying machines," radios, televisions, let alone the technology we enjoy today. She regaled me with tales of her riding standing up on the back of her horse, racing steam engines over the plains of Kansas. What a thrill! I was so privileged to know her.
That was the year I was born as well, and my grandpa was born in 1876! Thank you so much for sharing your memories of your grandma❤️❤️❤️🌺🥰
You got married at 17 years old!!!!.
she could have interacted with former slaves
Proof that men always die first 😳
Fascinating, always find family history like this really interesting and how we can see the sweep of time through just a few generations. My own grandma was born in 1909, I was born in 87. I had conversations with her in the early 2000s before she died in 05 about the first world war and her early memories. She told me that she remembered speaking to a man in the village who had spoke to his grandfather about his participation in the battle of Waterloo in 1815. Blows your mind
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.
I think Field Marshal Von Moltke would be truly surprised if he found out that 134 years later in 2023. People would be hearing him speak his message to the present. I bet there was a part of him who expected that recording to be treated as a throwaway curiosity. Especially once it reached its way back to Edison. I also don't think he had any idea how right, if almost prophetic, he would be with his choice of words.
Meanwhile Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville died thinking people would never get the opportunity to properly appreciate his invention as he originally intended. How oddly fitting that over 140 years later. He would get his wish that people would one day be able to visually make use his recording. Except instead of us being able to read it like writing as he intended/expected. We were instead able to make visual scans of the recording and convert them into something that could actually be listened to. Even giving us a chance to actually hear him. Just like how Edison could do with recordings on his phonograph.
Peut-être trouverons-nous le moyen de lire les sons dans les poteries au moment où elles ont été '' tournées ''...
That really is a visual. I feel like you'd be curious, or wondering what the hell this man is trying to sell you
And playing angry birds
Fun fact: Until the discovery of a recording of Helmuth von Moltke in 2012, Lajos Kossuth, a Hungarian nobleman/statesman etc. was the person with the earliest birth date from whom a sound recording was known (he was born in 1802).
he was also a really important part og hungarian history
Hajrá Magyar!
ah yes, "Helmuth von Moltke" a clearly ethnically hungarian name lol
I didn't even know there was a recording of him left and I'm hungarian
@@WhiteCourtain same lol
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.
That’s wild! I had to check Napoleon’s lifespan (1769-1821) and compared it to your great grandmother (born approximately 1870). That gap in time blows my mind.
Good ol Boney
@@Hunter-vp3he It could be Napoleon III (1808-1873)
And now i can say that i left a message for someone who has spoken to someone that has spoken to someone that spoke to napolean
the idea that your grandmother spoke to someone who knew exactly what napoleon looked like and his voice, mannerisms, etc is chilling.
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.
Did they return the disk to you?
You should take the digital recording and upload it to a RUclips video. :)
F Scott Fitzgerald did some recordings that way, some shop you could walk in and do it as a novelty one drunken night - I believe they're the only recordings of his voice.
Wow! It’s a wonder you kept it knowing you couldn’t play it. How wonderful.
Disk recording booths were common at amusement parks, arcades and galleries. Servicemen recorded and mailed messages to families, you could sing, recite, etc. (There's a Flintstones episode where Fred pretends he's a jazz artist and records "Mockingbird" as "Rockin' Bird".) Neil Young used one in 2014 to record messages to his dead mother and sing Ochs, Jansch, Springsteen and Dylan standards, on an album called _A Letter Home_ . There was a home version of the machine too. I've seen the little white discs they used. Some could be played on regular record players.
What did she say in the recording?
Hearing the voice of a human born two centuries ago is both incredible and creepy
Getting to be two and a quarter…⏳
Nothing "creepy" in it.
Intuitively, yes. But time really is just one piece. It's not, conceptually, weirder to listen to the words of von Moltke then it is to listen to those of Neil Armstrong, Ronald Reagan or Kurt Cobain.
Imagine, people from the year 3023 will watch you typing this comment. They will see me sitting on the floor in russian appartments near the river typing my comment and drinking hot cocoa. We can't hide from people of the future. They will see us through the photon traces and emitting of space-time continuum. Now this is creepy) "Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord." Jeremiah 23:24
What's creepy about it?😂
“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.
It does indeed we are for only a sort time this way.
One of the most obvious things for a guy at his age and in his time to contemplate, that we completely take for granted and miss ourselves.
I don’t understand how this hits hard. That’s like saying “Wear shoes to protect your feet” something obvious like that.
I don’t understand how this hits hard. That’s like saying “Wear shoes to protect your feet” something obvious like that.
I don’t understand how this hits hard. That’s like saying “Wear shoes to protect your feet” something obvious like that.
It blows my mind that I, as a 63 year old person have known and spoken with people born as long ago as 1890.
Agreed. I'm 65 and knew my great grandfather who died when I was around 6 years old. He was born in Calabria, Italy, in 1879.
And I bet you will sometime speak to someone who will live over another 100 years.
Yes, I’m 69 and conversed with my Great Grandmother born in 1871; which I’ve thought is amazing that she probably learned Spontaneous Generation in Science Class.
@@davidcouch6514lol
My Opa and Oma were born in 1896 and 1898 respectively and lived to see the horse and buggy, the airplane to the moon landing.
"The telephone makes it possible for a man who has already lain long in the grave to once again raise his voice and greet the present."
Wow...just wow. It's all I can say to something so poetic.
And it’s exactly what he did.
Poetic? It is descriptive, nothing more...
This part was the first to really move me to tears. Well said, sir.
@@BruceCarbonLakeriverbuzzkill
Greetings to you too, gentleman!
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
People don't really realize just how *slowly* language actually evolves. While it might be a bit different, I have no doubt that most people who speak English can read and understand most of English from the 1800's.
@@winstonedwards2014 I'd say even 1700's English is mostly understandable.
@@pabblo1 It is. Sure, there are some grammar and word diferences, and unless you're reading something like Shakespeare (yes, I know he's earlier than 1700's, just need an example of a more antique English) with a ton of different intricacies, you're going to be surprisingly ok.
I read Spanish books from 1600's and I'd say it's 95% close to modern Spanish.
@@ikarly2898 That's a lot higher of a percentage than I would've expected. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that Spain, as far as I know, hasn't had major language reform since then. What caused Spanish's lack of a change from then to now?
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.
Holy cow That was Actually Really really awesome
Also when typing “holy” in this comment, autocorrect typed holocaust Which is actually strange
Wow that's amazing!
@epikberman7756 My brother in christ, what is your search history
@@ohkyle9595 History stuff
Goodness, and how old are you?
I can't help but love that "The Great Silent One" is somehow the oldest recorded human voice surviving. And that was a very nice, clear recording, too., given the technology.
The first US president to have his voice recorded using a sound motion picture in 1924 was Calvin Coolidge, known by many as "Silent Cal".
I like that he was "silent in seven languages." When I was a teen and in my 20s I was shy and silent. Around ,27 yrs old or so, I realized that most of the people talking the loudest around me were saying far inferior things than I had to offer, do I stopped being bashful and silent from then on.
He spoke when needed ,you could say
This is why I’m a collector of Phonographs
To be able to listen to voices long dead on a machine more than 115 years old
It’s important to preserve such history, keeping ghosts of the past alive for future generations
The Moltke recording is super interesting, not just because he's the earliest born man to ever have his voice recorded, but also because he was entirely aware that this recording may outlive him and that people might listen to it long after his death.
It's also remarkable just how much the sound quality had improved in such a short span of time. The earlier recordings in this video had so much static that you could only make out a few individual words but this one is almost entirely clear and comprehensible (if you speak german, anyways).
As a German; It's as clear as it can be (considering that this is the earliest recording of a voice there is) and I could understand all of it clearly.
In that recording when he refers to the device as the telephone, that is a bit of poetic justice, because it was work by Alexander Graham Bell that led to the better sounding and more durable wax cylinder. Bell was also developing some of the earliest disc based recording systems.
Because he was clearly an extremely bright person. Made even more impressive considering his age at the time.
@@Fuerwahrhalunke Even as someone who recognises some words (learning German). It is surprisingly clear.
Funnily, Moltke turned out to have the most default German voice ever XD.
That last part,"no one knows what happened to his remains, but his voice lives on," sent chills up my spine.
You do know that most cemeteries are emptied out once all the relatives die out? That happens in most places.
@@peterc4082 How could that generalization be true? Lineages can't be expected to die out. For "all" the relatives to die out, a lineage would have to be extraordinarily unlucky. When people do family history research, they're typically able to find the burial places of their relatives from centuries before. Often, the inscriptions left on the gravestones are some of the most reliable evidence for that research, even.
if it's any consolation, pretty much any German town has a street named after him
@@niffler09 10 more years of the Green party in power and they will have changed all such streetnames
It's a pretty safe bet to say the Russians looted the place and stole his remains.
Hearing the gleeful laughter of a man singing nursery rhymes almost 150 years ago made me emotional. What a beautiful recording!
Lovely clear voices and no swearing for fucks sake.
Umm @@mogadon7
@@mogadon7fuckin right ya bastard
4:32 the mosquito in my room at night:
lol the voices sound like bees
I don't see the creepyness a lot of people are commenting about here. To be greeted from the past by a figure like Field Marshall von Moltke feels like a privilege, one that only people alive now can experience. Thank you for posting this...
To people on youtube everything old is "creepy". VHS recordings are creepy, old malls are creepy, hotel corridors are creepy.
If not creepy, it's...ugh.."cursed".
7:59 This guy is literally playing the trumpet straight into the mic, messes up the rhyme, and laughs about it. This is just as silly as people have ever been. Today, this would have been a pretty good streaming clip or something. Surely no one thinks it creepy.
@ryanhernandez8324 exactly it's extremely novel
Agreed, the only thing I've found creepy about old records are those like old 19th photos of dead people 💀. Now that would be an appropriate use if the word "creepy", very strange custom indeed ☠️
A lot of people on RUclips are fools it’s awesome to hear centuries old people.
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.
Folks back then were very robust, strong!
She lived to be 106 or 107? Damn
@@I_Will_Steal_Your_Kneecaps She wasn't born until 1897 and passed in 2001. My fathers side live pretty long lives. My grandfathers 4 oldest sons "my dads 4 oldest brothers" all fought in WWII and the last one passed fairly recent. They all lived into their mid/late 90s. My father was 20+ years younger than the 4 oldest brothers. I was very fortunate to be raised by uncles that fought in WWII and even one great uncle that fought in WW1. When I was young I thought it was odd that a lot of my family members were so old. It was great though because they all took me hunting, fishing and to work on their farms all the time. Then I had 3 12-15 year older brothers and sister because he had me later in life. So yeah, I was by far the youngest.
Similar situation. One g-grandfather was born in Georgia in 1826. He had my grandmother (his 16th child by two wives) in 1889 when he was 63 and my g-grandma was 38. My grandmother was 41 when she had my dad in 1930. I was born in 1965. I always tell people, “I’m barely here”.
So she lived in 3 different centuries. Amazing.
If I ever got a time machine, I would love to go back in time and tell the gentleman at 8:30 that people would still be smiling at hearing his laughter 145 years later.
Yeah, it sounds like he's singing and laughing at a family party
If you ever got a time machine you'd be making surreptitious visual and sound recordings of the people and things of the period with today's gear (or better hardware you might have nicked from the future).
If I ever had a time machine I would go back and tell Lincoln to skip the play at Ford's theater.
@@EnemaoftheState Might result in the world being significantly worse lol one small change and you come back and everything is gone
I dont know I think its creepy.
5:42 what my teammate's mic sounds like in any online game:
😭🙏🏿
I remember watching a documentary on a group of researchers who hypothesized that pots made by scraping a brush across it's surface could allow us to listen to conversations the ancient Roman women who were making the pots, were having.
They thought the sound waves could slightly vibrate the brushes and plant a sound wave on the soft clay pot.
Unfortunately, it didn't result in anything, but can you imagine if something like that existed??
The fact that such amazing possibility is not a matter of joke truly proves one thing, technology is truly beyond magic
If someone happened to make one long and continuous stroke, that would be plausible. The issue would be that if the stroke was not at a constant rate it would be quite a pain to find out the varying playback speed. At the present moment, we can hear conversations (maybe even those that have already passed, but I forget, depends how long the plant is in motion) by looking at a plant through a window of another building due to slight variation in the movement of its leaves and this audio technology is only getting better. Edit: found what I meant ruclips.net/video/FKXOucXB4a8/видео.html
The X Files wasn't a documentary, dog
It does sound plausible-but the mystery to me is why it took so long for the phonograph to be invented, since all the principles-constant wheel rotation, materials like wax or foil, well-machined screws to move the stylus-were there for quite some time before anyone thought of recording sound.
@@majkus Education. People truly were less inventive before the 19th and particularly 18th centuries.
I really find it cool that the thing Moltke describes, is what he is doing, raising his voice despite being dead for 130~ish years
I think he mighy very well have known what he was doing, being very old and very learned.
The old strategist knew exactly what it all meant in the grand scheme of things.
He was talking into a machine knowing full well he really was talking to future, yet unborn, generations.
sucks that one of the statues commemorating was torn down when the communists took over.
I am german from formerly Prussia and the fact that I could understand every word the General said without looking at the subtitles is wild, such good sound, he sounded just like any old men today. I thought about why he said almost the exact same sentence twice...the second time he twisted a few words so that it sounds a tiny bit more correct, elegant and sophisticated, like a written text. There was probably a lot of thought about what to say behind it and no chance to delete the first imperfect try.
There was a fixed amount of recording time, so he probably wanted to fill it and just reused his previous statement.
He repeats it because he misidentifies the invention as the telephone the first time.
What did he say?
@@StockyScoresRaoraPantheraFC starts at 13:40 , you can read the English transcript on screen.
What does that even mean? Did people say things twice on the telephone back then? It doesn't make sense to me.@@gabbleratchet1890
I have to admit how impressed and surprised I was to actually be greeted by a person from when this technology was just beginning to be mastered. It's really something to consider that people have been reaching out across distances so vast for so long. From fire signals and the written word to phonographs and photos. And now in the digital age and mass availability our voices are everywhere and indefinite. We even have a probe carrying pieces of our shared history and culture careening into space.
It's fascinating how much personality you can hear, despite the poor quality of the recordings, it really brings people of the past to life.
Yup like the last recording from a guy born in 1800 !! 😮
Just wait until some kid would said this is ai 😐
I've read that they are still trying to extract evidence of a personality from old recordings of Pat Paulsen.
These voices belonged to people who lived full lives. They loved, they had thoughts and feelings. They belong to a soul who’s passed but who’s voice will never die.
Beautifully put!
So, they were people is what you're saying. 🙄
People still love and get loved stop being so depressed
I mean, it's only about a 150 years ago. It's not like humans were any different back then.
That literally describes every voice recording of everyone. Including nowadays. It also describes people you hate. 😂
What saddens me, is that so many relatives of mine passed away without having ever left a audio record of their speech or even a video of them in life, when these technologies were widely available during their lifetimes. I think many people just assume that their existence isn't very important and won't be valued by their loved ones when they are gone, but they would be wrong. I value the few voicemails I have saved of my grandmother and my mother, and I find it comforting to hear their voices again.
My mom was a singer/musician. She passed in 2001. When my dad passed in 2019, I found a cassette tape of my mom singing radio jingles and jazz songs in 1964-65. The tape still works in my tape player. My mom had a beautiful singing voice and I'm so happy I can still hear her. I need to get the recordings digitized.
@@cessnaverdiYes please preserve those recordings forever!🥹❤️❤️❤️
I had a few stories that papaw told us that i recorded. I suffered a major pc hardware malfunction and lost them some years ago :( we had a voicemail machine that would mess up after a call and would fill up the cassette, recording the room. I found one of my you ger brothers playing and you can hear laughter, a thud where someone fell off the couch and my grandma both scolding and soothing lol.
I know how you feel. I never met my grandmother, but I had hoped that when my parents’ wedding videos were digitized I’d finally know what her voice sounded like. Sadly there was no clear recording of her voice. I’m heartbroken, but I am at least grateful for all the photos and videos of her.
That's a very good point.
As an Italian i got chills at the first intelligible speech being a reading of Torquato Tasso.
L' unico autore che ricordo di meno lmao
As a History nerd, I can't properly describe the emotions I felt when hearing the actual voice of the friggin' Von Moltke.
I never thought I'd have the opportunity to fangirl a man who died in 1891.
Von Moltke the younger, who started WW1, only got his job because of the reputation of the Elder. Having started the war, he collapsed with a nervous breakdown, having understood what he’d started
Aren't both Austria AND Russia more culpable for WW1 than Germany??
Austria : First country to declare war
Russia : First Country to declare war on another Superpower with a complex entangling alliances, also the First Country to declare war because of a Treaty
Germany didn't initiate anything
Germany was just doing exactly what Russia did;
Germany was "blamed" simply because of their strength and cohesion at the time made the the most formidable force in Europe
@@Richard-yd1ws
@@Richard-yd1ws Wikipedia is leftist crap
Read the book July 1914 by Sean McMeekin. And don't forget France gets some of the blame.
Fangirl?
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 agree, so clear as well, I wouldn't have needed subtitles to make out his words.
It is also the content of his words.
He said it in a way, knowing future generations will hear them, making him the "Voice from beyond the grave". As if he wanted to greet the future people hearing him. It's awesome in a way and creepy. But very positive
Exakt das gleiche habe ich auch gedacht. Er sprach nicht anders als die Deutschen heute. Aber sein Name war nicht "Van Moltken" :D
Deutsche Sprache, beste Sprache.
He was not "Van Moltken" numb-nuts (Depp), but "von Moltke" DER preußische Feldmarschall....!!
What I find very interesting is that with the recording of Moltke as well as with Bismarck or the Kaiser, you hear the prussian flair in their speech. A very particular way of pronouncing words sadly not around anymore. At least for the majority of the people.
I want to see it brought back!
The voice recording reminds me a lot of my now dead grandfather. He used to talk very similarly to this.
Yes, he speaks with great authority and clarity. He also sounded genuinely astonished at this amazing new technology.
You can hear his age in the record as well.
It is kind of wired, how similar his pronounciation is to Norddeutschen born before the war.
A lot of people in Berlin don't even speak German anymore, or rarely do. I wonder if it will end up being an English or even Arabic speaking city.
4:23 for anyone who wants to get to the point and hear the voices.
This recorded year?🤔
Gentleman and a scholar ❤
I don't know why, but hearing this old man telling in my mother language that he's greeting the present from 1889, which is 99 years before I was born, brings tears to my eyes.
shut up
Deutschland....nie aufgeben
It’s honestly pretty and haunting at the same time. Like how did he know it wouldn’t get destroyed and we would be listening today?
@@ihanakaunotar2741 he obviously didn't
me too. i ended up crying to this video
Not sure what kind of frequency there is in the very first French recording but it spooked my dog sleeping beside me.
That must be the "his master's voice" Victor Company was advertising about
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
Thank u bro
Thnx
❤
You forgot 5:44
Thank you
6:24 I am super glad that he's not forgotten and that he's getting recognised for his invention. I bet he knows
There's a poetic irony in the fact that von Moltke did exactly what he praised the phonograph to make possible: raise his voice once more, although being long since burried.
It's more ironic that he was described as "silent", but he's the only real voice we can now hear from his time.
he was 89 at the time, he knew his life was coming to an end soon-ish and maybe the topic he spoke about influenced the fact that it survived (we are less likely to throw away things we find to be profound).
how is it irony? he obviously picked those words intentionally.
As a former German Officer I learned a lot about Helmuth von Moltke. But never in my life I would've thought that I'd be able to actually hear his voice with my own ears.
Technology truly is something magnificent.
Thank you for this very interesting video.
Hi
I know enough German to follow most of what he said. I found it surprisingly similar to today's German. The language hasn't changed very much.
German police officer or german military officer?
@รชภรณ์ศิธรวัฒน
Former military officer (last rank Captain)
@@7shinta7Finally realize that Germany isn’t even German anymore, and figured that working for the Synagogue of Satan wasn’t worth it?
Good call.
My grandfather was born in 1892 and lived to age 96. The changes he saw are unmatched by any generation in all of of mankind's existence. He was born into a world that hadn't changed significantly in hundreds of years, and died in a world totally unrecognizable to all who lived before. Hearing the laughter on that one recording was really special. Thank you for this intriguing and educational video!
Damn you are totally right. His generation saw the invention of so much!
The world had changed a lot in the century before he was born. Look at transportation - from horses being the fastest way to travel to trains and other powered vehicles. Ships were no longer dependent on wind.
How about communication? The invention of the telegraph and the laying of transoceanic cables meant news could reach the other side of the world in minutes instead of months.
Look it up. There's way more than that.
My great great grandmother was born in 1891, she lived to 107. My grandma said she always hated modern technology!
@@bl3313 For the common man, especially those in rural areas, life didn't change as drastically until the start of the 20th century as you make it sound.
I can think of the earliest born person who i met was my mother’s step mother’s mother or more simply my step grandmothers mother. It was in 1988. I remember her well. She was kind. She played with me on the floor with my little toy cars. She was born in 1890. When i got older in 2004, i met a 106 year old while volunteering at an old persons home. These are the kinda memories that stick with you as you age. Knowing that so many generations are lost but you the opportunity to speak with someone of that era!!
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.
Moltke was born in 1800, and although rare at that time people lived to be 100. Moltke could have come in contact with someone born in the late 1600s, who could have come in contact with someone from the 1500s. That is just crazy
And with 900,000 of average human lifetimes, you get to the time of Tyrannosaurus Rex
Last person who made it to 120+ was in the 90s. Back theb people assumed we'd reach 150 by 2025. We've had many 100ners but no 120+ since.
Mind blowing
@@falconeshieldLmao?
Only ONE person has ever been confirmed to have lived to or above 120, it was obviously a woman, because women live longer on average.
Also, all 10 of the oldest people are women.
6/10 of the oldest people died in the 21st century, after 2010.
If you skew to just the oldest men, who don't even make the top 10 oldest people; most of them died in the 2000s, pre-2010, but if we are counting all 2000s+, then 8/10 of the oldest men died in the modern era.
If sorting by All of the longest living people since 1954, by age when oldest; the top 10 had 8 die after 2000, and 7 of those 8 were dead after 2010.
If we look at Unverified claims (With complete birthdates), your point gets washed away; All 10 of the 10 oldest Unverified claims with complete birthdates were dead in 2020+
I cannot find a single study that states humans would live to 160+ by 2030 or whatever; studies into maximal longevity indicate a potential maximum human lifespan, an early 1930s study suggested there was no maximal lifespan.
Unusually, you have one study that supports what you stated; it claims in it's abstract: "Here, by analysing global demographic data, we show that improvements in survival with age tend to decline after age 100, and that the age at death of the world’s oldest person has not increased since the 1990s."
This is of course; immediately disproven by my above examples, but there is a study which did exactly what you did (look at the oldest person and when they died and basically just go "welp").
I'm prone to NON demographics studies, because demographics only tell you what has happened so far.
Studies into the maximal age determined by basal metabolic oxygen utilization in heart tissue, which indicates a maximum lifespan of 125 years for athletes that have a VO²max of 50-60 at 20 years old, continue to train into their late ages, to maintain the rate of decline of their VO²Max.
So I can't even really fathom what you're insinuating; lifespans have gotten longer on average, that's an undeniable fact.
@@falconeshield Jeanne Calment might not even have been that old. There's speculation that she was the actual Jeanne Calment's daughter that took on her dead mother's identity for some tax reason.
It's crazy to think Moltke's words actually make sense with what we think listening back to it:
"The telephone makes it possible for a man who has already lain long in the grave once again to raise his voice and greet the present."
He truly has lain long in the grave for over 100 years only for his voice to be heard again long after.
It’s almost haunting
This last message put such a big smile on my face... it's like I got greeted by someone who was truly remarkable! Who not even in his wildest dreams could imagine millions or persons over 100 years later, would hear his greeting to "the present". It truly puts "time passing by" into a whole different perspective.
Also endearing that his statement there is completely wrong and he repeats it with the correct "phonograph" after a youngster explains it to him. Still, not a bad grasp of cutting-edge tech for a 90+ year old.
@@ElcorePretty much makes it the worlds first recorded blooper
Reminds me of The Beatles song Your Mother Should Know
“Let’s all get up and dance to a song that was a hit before your mother was born”
The song is even more meta nowadays because IT IS the song that was a hit before my mother was born that I am now getting up and dancing to. Aged like fine wine
Brilliant history. So glad that some recordings were recovered from obscure archives. Well done. Perhaps modern digitalisation can make them clearly audible .
I'm 52. I remember my nans neighbour when I was a small child. She was nearly 100 years old so was born around 1876, almost 150 years ago. She was always nice to me giving me bars of chocolate or a 50 pence piece which to me as a little kid seemed a fortune. She died around 1977, not long after she reached 100. Just think, her grandparents would have been born during the Georgian period long before Victoria came to the throne. We live so close to the 19th and 18th centuries even though they seem the distant past. Listening to our ancestors voices is truly fascinating so thanks for adding this to RUclips.
We are removed from them due to time but humans are still humans no matter the time. We all have that favorite tune that we cant get out of our heads. Bless these great Men.
This is something I love about all kinds of media from the past (recordings, photographs, paintings, writing, etc.). It shows that while culture and technology may undergo massive changes through time, people are still people. Whether it's ancient Roman writers complaining about "kids these days" or Victorians taking silly photos, the human experience never really changes.
@@StarchildMagic A Roman barkeep goes about his day, eats a breakfast of eggs with pork and beans and a fresh bun, he goes to the spa, stops by the barber, has a nice walk on the sea shore, stops by the local fast food joint for a quick soup lunch with mussels, then he goes and opens his bar for the afternoon while complaining to those who will listen about kids these days, ruining proper latin with all these foreign words they pick up while on campaign, then goes to bed after dinner with his family.
Yep, the particulars might change, but being human rhymes true time and time again.
"Kids" ruining Latin "On campaign"? Children aren't tough career soldiers, I get your comment's main point though@@tylermech66
@@SStupendous you never hear old veterans calling newer soldiers kids?
Admittedly, the guy wrote there would have been a civilian, so yeah prolly wouldn't be in a position to consider any soldier a kid within his culture, but yeah.
I might also be misunderstanding the term "campaign", but I did write that comment in like 10 seconds, not claiming to be Shakespeare here lol.
not if you go back over 1.000.000 years
There is a museum in Germany that recorded the voices and many different accents of the English prisoners of war from WWI! I think they were overlooked and so were accidentally kept instead of being destroyed, and of course they are a priceless resource of great historical importance now.
Where is this?
I remember this because they also recorded voices of French prisonners so when it was rediscovered it made the news here. A treasure trove of local accents, folk songs and testimonies.
@@yellowsyellows9150 Germany
@@yellowsyellows9150 Richard E Grant's speech-coach wife, June Washington (I think that was her name; she died a year or so ago), put a video on RUclips about those recordings a few years ago so you can track them down/listen to them on here.
What was incredible about those prisoner recordings to me, a Brit, was just how strong the regional accents the English soldiers had were - something you don't hear very much today when a kind of generic "estuary" English is spoken up and down the land - and also how many of the soldiers pronounced the word "father" as "ferrther", even ones who came from completely different parts of the country and who otherwise had completely different accents from each other. Just weird.
But also fascinating to hear something you just don't hear now.
@@skatergirlskatergirl2486I searched for it but couldn't find it. You have a link ?
The guy laughing at the end of the song had so much joy 🤩
So great that these recordings are so old, and still have better sound quality than most intercoms at drive-throughs.
What a waste. The very first recording was “Would you like fries with that?” 😊
Hearing that man recite nursery rhymes and be so upbeat and laughing, made me laugh out loud as well.
It was genuinely wholesome, and actually brings to mind a different time, it really did make me feel like I am at the past for a bit.
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.
He sounded rather sweet.
5:47 the mosquito in my ear when im trying to sleep
😂
I just find it funny how it was automatic for everyone to begin recording songs. Just shows how much we need art
Yeah music is awesome and always will be! I love art to. It is cool that the common song length of 2-3 minutes was a product of how much the phonograph could store!
I had only heard "Au Clair De La Lune" from 1860 before, never the other two recordings. Very interesting not only to actually hear them for the first time, but see the story of Scott de Martinville in such detail. Read about him but never knew his story to this detail. Great video, I'm here ever since the similar one about Girault de Prangey's early 1840s photographs.
Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville a name to not forget like he wished.
@SStupendous - Thank you for saying what I would have liked to have said, but couldn't ever manage to say anywhere _NEARLY_ as well. *_YOU_** said this all **_VERY,_** VERY WELL!*
@@dixietenbroeck8717 Thank you too for your appreciation. I love this channel, it's everything I wish I could do if I have the time, the editing and script is top notch and actual history at a point when YT is full of bot channels and complete trash purposely spreading misinformation.
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😊
Makes you realize again that history is human
Yes! Especially when he laughs and says he doesn't know the song. It's such an everyday thing to so many.
I hate music.
@@iamerror1699 womp womp
copyright for sure.
It raises the hair on the back of my neck to hear those fragile voices from so long ago and so far away...Those people lived and strove and loved and died ages before we came along, and yet we can hear them now. Amazing--thank you for sharing!
As a German, born 100 years after the recording of Moltke, it sends chills to my spine hearing his message.
He actually understood what this invention would be capable of.
This is proof of just how much humanity can accomplish. Why if shy don’t er always use our potential for only the good…
I did too, it's a shame his remains weren't preserved (then again, it was Silesia, so pity)
At last a German who can spell "German" correctly!
@@frontenac5083 Considering you feel the need to go around correcting others on their use of "German", you should realize that not capitalizing the 'G' is not a spelling error, it is a grammatical error. Just as misplacing a comma or apostrophe would not be a spelling error, not capitalizing 'G' in German is not a spelling error.
Bartok, the Hungarian composer went around recording folk songs to preserve his culture. These original recordings taken on wax cylinder still exist today and Bartok transcribed them for string orchestra. They go by the name The Romanian Folk Dances.
I consider preservers of history to be heroes and servants to mankind. Thank you for sharing this little known information!
It is haunting that the words that came to Moltke's mind were that a man could lift his voice from the grave - as he does right now.
Nothing haunting about it bruv smh
These hyper-emotional leddit comments are ridiculous. Yes, my German cousins think ahead and include after we die. What's weird are people who don't think ahead.
Even though Moltke‘s German might seem almost identical to Standard German nowadays, there are actually a couple subtle differences present, which might even escape a native speakers ears, would they not listen carefully. 2 to be exact.
1. The “eu” was still pronounced as a combination of “e” + “u” (as you can hear in “1889” & “neueste”), in todays Standard German, this sound has mellowed out into an “oi” (you’d pronounce “9” as “noin” & “neu” as “noi” in Standard German today)
2. The long/stressed “e” was still pronounced closed, instead of open like it is now. This one is tricky to put into words, but stress (vowel length) in German always lands on the first vowel of the stem/core word. So as an example, “geben” (to give) always has the stress on the first vowel, and causing it to be pronounced long [gében]. Even if you inflect the word differently, like in “gegeben” (he/she/it gave), the stress would still be [gegében], since “ge-“ is only a prefix indicating the past, and not part of the core word.
Now here’s where the difference makes itself known. In todays Standard German, a stressed “long e” isn’t just an unstressed “short e” and just pronounced longer (take the “e” in “Essen”, pronounce it artificially long, then try to insert it as the first “e” in “geben), it’s evolved into a completely different sound entirely, similarly to how the French and Hungarians pronounce their long “é”. When Moltke says “erh[é]bt” (from “h[é]ben, “er-“ is a prefix) and “G[é]genwart”, you can clearly tell he’s putting the stress correctly and lengthening the word, but the “e” is still pronounced “closed” (much like Slavic languages still do today) and not yet “open” like in modern German.
Very interesting.
In Spanish, naturally, when saying Deutschland, we say it like Moltke did. So if I were to travel back in time and talk to Moltke, and say Deutschland or words with that same sound, I would be correct, whereas today I have to say "oi"
like when I heard Angela Merkel say the name: Doitschland. Or well, Deutschland or whatever name it was used for it then, perhaps just name "Deutsche" or whatever for whatever context.
It’s amazing how far technology has come in such a short period of time.
And people are still as ignorant as ever.
@@EnemaoftheState Pretty much this. If anyone from ancient times right up to the 1990s were told that one day everyone would carry a handheld device that could immediately access the entirety of human knowledge, they would think that such a device would herald a new golden age, pushing back the frontiers of human understanding. Instead we have Tiktok dances and OnlyFans 🙄
@@EnemaoftheStateits for balancing purpose
@@EnemaoftheStatewell human beings aren’t technology are they? Inherently flawed
No they aren't. If it were not for 2% of the population the other 98% would still be living in caves and carrying clubs.
Amazing that Moltke (going on 90!) was the only person recording his voice who fully comprehended the potential of the invention of the phonograph. To the others the machine seems to have been a mere curiosity or toy. (To be honest, that´s what social media are for 95% of us today, still.)
To be a man of Moltke’s calibre, you had to understand the potential of modern technology. Just as he pioneered mobile warfare strategy, along with Schlieffen.
Visions of a future he was never meant to see
I don’t care what anyone says, social media is disease.
@@historysimplified4075well if you understand how something works, you can easily understand how it'll change the future
Terrible man. Prussians were horrible and they led to German militarism and Hitler and so much misery. The rest of the Germans are a more peaceful bunch, Prussia was the nasty one on account of the Teutonic knights who were real thugs.
So the earliest voice ever is of field marshal von moltke a man so old and famous...
A man that has lived so long that when he was 15 years old napoleon had just return from elba to france....a man that has lived so long that when he was even born that not even my earliest known ancestor was and yet we still manage to record his voice
Amazing...both amazing and astonishing
Amazing and astonishing are synonyms.
It's amazing how 500 years ago might only be 25 generations ago.
@@ammr3870 I know, I think about that all the time
@@ammr3870 well its depends on how you count generations or how old the generations last...
An even crazier thing about generations : If you interacted with an 80 year old when you were 10, and that this 80 year old had himself interacted with an elder when he was young, if we repeat that, we get 2000 years crossed with only 20 people. That absolutely blows my mind, that I am technically 20 people away from the Roman empire, and another 20 from the year 4000. Makes you realize how closed together history is when compared to the span of a dozen generations
LOVE your videos, love them…this kind of historical origins of recorded sight and sound just lights up my brain…as a history junkie I could watch these kind of videos all night long! Thank you for taking the time to compile and research this amazing information ; well done!
Hearing laughter through the centuries is sort of beautiful. I really loved this
Moltke wasn't even wrong when he said (rather than "phonograph") "telephone". After all, those now listening to him will mostly be able to do so via the Internet.
Well, Edison didn’t invent the telephone.
Moltke playing the long game
Imagine if he had a real weird moment and accidentally called the phonograph the internet, and it became some sort of folk name for a mythical communication invention until researchers actually starting the internet decided to use the name to call it the internet. 🤔
I mean I did watch this on my phone. Granted I'm not sure how Moltke would feel if he knew I was watching the video while on the toilet
what does a telephone have to do with the internet though
The laughter at the Mary Had A Little Lamb recording... So beautiful to listen to, almost impossible to comprehend that this was in the Victorian Era.
Wow ….. Moltke - every single word clear to understand. Unbelievable - but well deserved by this man who was far more than only a successful Fieldmarshall - Great! Dear Helmuth, thank you for your greetings - will reply when we meet on the other side! 🎉
It is amazing how muffled people used to sound.
I can't believe that they all understood each other so well.
Human speech has come a long way!
@@KuroHebiit’s a joke lol
@@hmu05366 I think he/she knows it's a joke
@@hmu05366I think he’s joining the joke not actually believing it bud.
Yeah, and it was all black and white then...
Unlike others who find it haunting I myself find it warms my heart, so thank you for creating this video :)
Same! It's so sweet that he specifically wants to "greet the present" wherever it might be
Soon we will be the past, too, and his greeting. to the present continues to move with time 💛
Well the last one isn’t all that creepy, if anything it’s quite inspiring. However, the first few recordings were kind of eerie just because of the sound distortion combined with the nursery rhyme style of music. It just sounds like something you’d hear in an antique horror show. I could definitely see someone using the audio for a horror video game in the future.
Yeah, RUclips are full of clowns
Aren't you special.... pat yourself on the back while you're at it lol
“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.”
Absolute chills. How right he was by the views on this video.
So nice he said it twice.
It's so nice hearing people from the past laugh and sing. We always just see these emotionless photos of them and black and white photos but they were just people. They would laugh and cry and tell jokes and everything we do today.
Thank you Herr Von Moltke for allowing your voice to be preserved for future generations so that we inhabitants of the 21st century could listen to it played back in all its glory, Rest in Peace old soldier
R.I.P Feldmarschall Von Moltke.
i can't believe how happy that laughter on the recording made me, i always thought these recordings were so scary and creepy but this is just pure joy
I’m born in 1982 and I can remember my great-uncle’s voice who was born in 1888. He lived till 1994.
8:00 The sound quality was poor, but we can hear a great trumpetist ... bright tone, fast speed, no mistake
To hear von Moltke's voice and the greatings he gives is just remarkebell, I myself am German and I love history. Learning about the fact that not only the voice of one of the great Military minds of his time is still living on but that he is also the oldest voice ever heard again is from every point of view just so fascinating! Thank you for this educational video and the best greatings from Germany 🇩🇪
People keep saying that its scary to hear voices of people that died long ago, but i just think its really fascinating
Yeah, like it’s just people we’re hearing after all. Now if we were to discover recordings from another planet entirely? THAT would be creepy (still cool though.)
It is, but I can understand people being a little creeped out. Imagine that in the future, humans re-discover a voice message you sent to your friend. During life you'd never had imagined that audio would survive for hundreds of years.
I wish we would've been able to hear people from farther back. It would've been so fascinating to hear the old languages and what they thought and how they thought. And how they sounded! Inflections clearly change with time.
That would be amazing. But, I guess that, if they could have recorded voices, those languages might still exist.
There’s videos on RUclips showing how older languages sounded like
German dude sounded the same aa hitler speaking
Yeah but what will English sound like in like 200 hundred years from now that's also on my mind
@@Cactusgamer303 Metatron made a video about how English evolved from different stages, and made a guess about how English might sound in the future. It's called "How Weird Would Modern English Sound To A Medieval English Person?".
I loved that recording of nursery rhymes. He seemed so happy. It's nice being able to relieve history in that way. History has always been interesting to me . But it really clicks with something tangible, audible or visible. That's why I collect coins, old records, paintings and some books. My oldest book is from the late 1700s around the time of the revolutionary war. My oldest coin is from 200 A.D. these are my most prized collections. I feel like im there in the past with them.
Helmut von Moltke was aware that this "in der Tat staunenswerte Erfindung" Edison invented, would become popular. He choose or read wise words and i think he would be proud if he knew that someone born over 200 years after him still hears his message in his language. Danke Euch, Herr von Moltke!
Meanwhile - Oct 2024 - more than 3 Million humans have heard the voice of Moltke - most probably much more than during his life time……
RUclips is closest thing to a Time Machine.. We’ll never kno what the future hold but can always visit the past within a click..
RUclips is a time machine that you can't get out of...keeps sucking you in for longer than you want to be here lol!
You’re right, they need a youtube for videos from the future.
Before this video, I believe one of the earliest known recordings of a voice I've heard was that of Queen Victoria, who was born in 1819. This video brought us the knowledge that there is a recording of a man of much historical fame, and was born one year after George Washington passed away. History is incredible. It really is. These people actually lived and walked the earth well over 200 years ago. It makes us all wonder what they were like in person.
I suspect videos (maybe this video) will survive centuries because the content is so valuable and so timeless! Few efforts are worth as much as this one!
I find it quite ironic, that of all the people who have lived through the 18th century, the only one to have his voice heard again centuries later, was not a man of many words during his own life. Indeed very fascinating, and beautiful
*19th century
^1800 was the 1st year of the 19th century.
14:25 hauntingly beautiful, sir. Welcome back.
The recording of the people laughing makes me so happy for some reason
I was born in 1996 and my great grandparents on my mom's side were born in 1896, and I think that's really cool! Sadly they died before my birth and no one recorded their voices. Super cool to hear such old voices on this video though!
It's almost as if there people are trying to say something important to us, imagining someone in the future will remember their voices. It's both haunting and fascinating to hear these recordings. Thank you for exposing them
It’s human to want to be remembered
As a German, hearing Bismarck, who is, at least for me, a national and historic hero and person to look up to, almost made me tear up when I first heard it a couple of years ago. The recording of Friedrich Wilhelm II. is almost as important to me. Especially considering when he recorded his speech and what he said.
Also; it's the first time I hear Moltke talk and it's, considering when it was recorded, so damn clear to me. I can actually understand him word for word. That's just haunting. 134 year old recording... The first world war, the forceful end to a thousand year old history of monarchs in Germany, the Weimar Republic, the third Reich, the second world war, millions of deaths, the overtaking of Germany by America, France, GB and Russia, the loss of territories, the splitting up of Germany into 4 zones, then into 2 and finally in 1990 back to one country. During that time we've gone through Monarchy, first democracy, national socialism, being ruled over by different nations, socialism in the east, social market economy in the west and finally social market economy in all of Germany with a representitive democracy and a supranational entity called European union. That's just bizarre to think about what my ancestors went through in such a short period of time.
Liebe mein heimatland. Egal was....
It’s impressive your family is still in Germany after all of that.
My family left Ireland in the late 1800’s, then my dad even left Scotland eventually due to religious oppression and difficulty living as a Catholic (in 1963).
So in about 100 years my family history is mostly lost and I have no idea if anyone alive knows our family tree
@@krusher181 My family tree can be tracked back to the 1600s on my mother's side and to the 1750s on my father's side. All of them have been in Germany, more specifically in the Niederrhein region close to the netherlands. Just the house I currently live in has been built by my family in 1859. I'm currently in the room where my great-grandmother grew up in in the late 1800s. Just these bricks surrounding me tell the story of my family.
I'm honestly glad to live and know where my roots are and I'm even more glad to look like it as well. I can proudly say that I'm fully German. I have the biggest respect for my family for sticking to Germany through thick and thin.
It's sad knowing what many Europeans have been through in the past though. Hoping for a time where everyone can live in peace without politics or economics ripping apart whole family histories.
And now mass migration. Sorry had to add it
Szwaby to nie są ludzie to roboty. Macie nasrane we łbach.
Oh look, an early christmas present from Kings and Things! :D
I'm glad you picked up my suggestion, and I have to say that this video is really a piece of art - editing, images, music, everything is really beautiful and artistic. And the end with Moltke's voice recording was just perfect. Thank you for giving us these wonderful videos and for putting so much work into them! ❤
Hearing the voice of some dude born a century before the Titanic disaster and WW1 is wild
I think the most impressive part,is how the first recorded sound, was transform into a digital form. I really wished more records from the past,regardless of form, gets into digital form someday,both for preservation and access to it
A very interesting recording is of Józef Piłsudski's voice. He's marvelling about how he's speaking to a metal tube and how in the future his grandkids will hear some bizzare device speaking with his voice.
Here we had Moltke who was part of the Prussian militarism which ultimately gave us the NSDAP.
@@peterc4082 This is a common misconception, but Prussian militarism has nothing to do with the NSDAP. Hitler was from Austria, and the NSDAP had its roots in München, Bavaria. In fact, many of the Prussian elite, for example Paul von Hindenburg himself, despised Hitler and the "plebeian brown movement". And if you look at the members of the resistance group around Oberst von Stauffenberg, you'll find many people from the old Prussian Officers Corps. It almost reads like the "who-is-who" of the old Prussian Army including many famous families who served Prussia since the days of Frederick the Great (Friedrich der Große): von Witzleben, von Tresckow, von Quirnheim, von Gersdorf and even Helmuth Moltke's great-grandnephew: Helmuth James von Moltke. All of them were executed after the failed attempt to take Hitler's life, and are now remembered as some of the few, who actually tried to do something against the Nazis.
And for your interest: there was another (civilian) resistance group called the "Kreisauer Kreis" (= Circle of Kreisau). And why was it called that way? Because its headquarter was at the Moltke estate Kreisau -- the same we have just seen in this video, where the older Moltke recorded this message to Edison...!
So you see: the Moltke family was even a central part of the resistance against Hitler! Please inform yourself a bit better, before posting such nonsense as "the Prussian militarism gave us the NSDAP". It is rather the other way around: the Nazi propaganda was very skillful in presenting themselves as the "true successors" of old Prussia and drawing a straight line from Friedrich to Bismarck to Hitler..., but that was just propaganda to deceive the masses. (Apparently that propaganda was quite successful, if people today still believe it...) But the truth is, that the NSDAP (and many leading party members like Hitler, Göring and Hess) had their roots in southern Germany/Bavaria/Austria.
(Though of course once it had gained in power, people from all parts of Germany - including Prussia - joined in large numbers...)
@@ulrichschmidt5559 Prussian militarism gave us to the rigid tradition of obedience which led the Germans to follow Hitler blindly and pack people off in concentration camps. I know there were 'resistance' groups but they were few and far between and the Germans by the large were happy to engage in the second as well as the first and even prior wars.
Likewise the whole German establishment under Bismarck was RACIST to the core and oppressed Poles and others. So please kindly you educate yourself better. It also does you no good to know that many Nazi and non Nazi war German war criminals were let off scott free. For example the scumbags who burnt the surrendering Polish postal workers in the Gdansk/Danzin Post Office were never prosecuted by the West Germans. Have a good day.
@@ulrichschmidt5559 My people had to endure generations of racist oppression, from the 19th to the early 20th century and the most extreme form in the war years. It's nice to list a group of names but none of these people actually did what they did before the war, they only attempted to assassinate Hitler when the war was starting to go badly. We know there is a long tradition of German militarism which has ugly tendencies, as with assistance the Turks had with the Armenian genocides or the way the Herero people were treated in Namibia. Thanks but your response is not relevant.
@@peterc4082 Dear Peter,
you do have a number of valid points here, I do not deny those, I only object to your statement "the Prussian militarism ultimately gave us the NSDAP", because it is wrong. The roots of the NSDAP are in Bavaria, and Hitler's racism was formed in his days in Vienna, so it is basically an "Austrian flavor" of racism that grew in the Austrian-Hungarian multi-ethnic empire around 1900, which had lots of problems due to the fact that it had citizens with Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Serbian, Croatian, Italian, etc... nationality within its border. *So this has nothing to do with Prussia.* (If you don't believe me, read Ian Kershaw's excellent Hitler biography. He explains the roots of the NSDAP and of Hitler's racism very well. And he is a British historian, so you can probably count on his "objectiveness".)
I want to add a few more points to your other statements, but I'll do this in separate posts, because they are not related to the question "where did the NSDAP come from".
My grandma is 80 years old. She made a point that the 1800s weren’t really that long ago and she’s right because when she was born the 1800s were only 40 years before she was born her mother was born in the very early 1900s and her grandmother was born in the 1800s so she knew people in her life that were born in the late 1800s, lots of people in her life were born then but in my perspective I was born over 40 years after she was it seems like a long time to me but now kids are saying the 80s 1980s were a long time ago. The perspective is different the older you get.
Absolutely!! Very well-stated. Wait until you turn 50...and suddenly 100 years ago won't seem that long ago (I'm 52, now)! 😉👍
I don’t usually comment, but this video and especially the beautiful message by Moltke got me emotional. It is incredible to hear this people’s voices and.
Thanks for the video