liuowa:

On 9th March 2008, historians have found what they believe is the first recording of a human voice. Predating Thomas Edison’s first phonograph recording of 1877. The “phonautograph”, created by etching soot-covered paper by Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville, was played by US scientists using a “virtual stylus” to read the lines. The recording was initially believed to be the voice of a woman or adolescent, but further research in 2009 suggested the playback speed had been too high and that it was actually the voice of Scott himself. This is the original recording.