Berliner Lautarchiv British & Commonwealth recordings
Number of items in collection: 66
Short description:
Recordings in this collection can be played by anyone.
The Berliner Lautarchiv British & Commonwealth Recordings is a subset of an audio archive made between 1915 and 1938 by German sound pioneer, Wilhelm Doegen. Enlisting the support of numerous academics, Doegen sought to capture the voices of famous people, and languages, music and songs from all over the world. The collection acquired by the British Library in 2008 comprises 821 digital copies of shellac discs held at the Berliner Lautarchiv at the Humboldt Universität. It includes recordings of British prisoners of war and colonial troops held in captivity on German soil between 1915 and 1918 and later recordings made by Doegen in Berlin and on field trips to Ireland and elsewhere. The content of the recordings varies and includes reading passages, word lists, speeches and recitals of songs and folk tales in a variety of languages and dialects.
Long description:
Recordings in this collection can be played by anyone.
The Berliner Lautarchiv British & Commonwealth Recordings is a subset of an audio archive made between 1915 and 1938 by German sound pioneer, Wilhelm Doegen. Enlisting the support of numerous academics, Doegen sought to capture the voices of famous people, and languages, music and songs from all over the world. The collection acquired by the British Library in 2008 comprises 821 digital copies of shellac discs held at the Berliner Lautarchiv at the Humboldt Universität. It includes recordings of British prisoners of war and colonial troops held in captivity on German soil between 1915 and 1918 and later recordings made by Doegen in Berlin and on field trips to Ireland and elsewhere. The content of the recordings varies and includes reading passages, word lists, speeches and recitals of songs and folk tales in a variety of languages and dialects.
The selection presented here is a complete set of 66 recordings of British POWs recorded between 1916 and 1918 reading the ‘Parable of the Prodigal Son’ in their native dialect. This text was popular in linguistic surveys at the time and was used, for instance, in sound recordings made between 1913 and 1929 for Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India. Its academic value derives from the fact it permits a comparative analysis of several grammatical features, such as personal pronouns, noun declensions and the present, past and future tenses. These recordings of British POWs represent some of the earliest known recordings of ‘ordinary’ speakers. Although ‘performances’ like this can raise questions about authenticity, it is reassuring to note that many of the words, pronunciations and grammatical constructions elicited are confirmed by later, more naturalistic recordings.
The British Library acknowledges the support of the Lautarchiv der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Image: courtesy of the Imperial War Museum.
All recordings on this site are governed by licence agreements.