1781 KRATZENSTEIN, Christian Gottlieb (1723 – 1795)

Tentamen resolvendi problema ab Academia Scientiarum Imperial Petropoitana ad annum 1780 public propositum. 1) Qualis fit natura et character sonorum litterarum vocalium a, e, i, o, u tam insigniter inter se diversorum. 2) Annon construi qutans instrumenta ordini tuiborum organicorum, sub termino vocis humane noto, similia, quae literarum vaclium a, e, i, o, u sonos exprimant.

In the first part of this work Kratzenstein described how the vowels could be produced in the vocal tract. In the second part he described the construction of a new kind of organ with pipes for each of the vowels. Eac…

GMN 13253 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15518

1791 KEMPELEN, Johann Wolfgang Ritter von (1734 – 1804)

Mechanismus der menschlichen Sprache nebst Beschreibung seiner sprechenden Maschine.

Kempelen built the first successful speech synthesizer that produced not only some speech sounds, but also whole words and short sentences. His final version of the machine, which differs slightly from the version sho…

GMN 13254 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15519

1930 PAGET, Sir Richard Arthur Surtees (1869 – 1955)

Human speech. Some observations, experiments, and conclusions as to the nature, origin, purpose and possible improvement of human speech.

Paget believed that speech originated in the "pantomimic action" of the lips and tongue related to the speaker's senses and emotions. This led to his central thesis that hand signs and gestures were the original form …

GMN 13255 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15520