Voices for toys - first commercial spin-offs in speech synthesis

When the collection of phonetic instruments of the Phonetic Institute of the Hamburg University came to the HAPS Dresden in 2005, it included also some small mechanic voices, which can produce single sounds as well as few simple words. These voices are well-known in the phonetic literature as an early attempt to provide hard-hearing people with automatic training tools, following a proposal of the otologist Johannes Kessel in 1899. On the other hand, the phonetic literature never took any notice from the real origin of these interesting pieces. Therefore the author started an investigation some years ago [1], which guided him not only to the interesting field of mechanical voices in the manufacturing of toys and dolls, but moreover back to the roots of mechanical speech synthesis at the end of the 18th century. This paper gives a rough overview about the recent state of this investigation. 1 From Kempelen to Mälzel Apart from other reasons, the speaking machine of Wolfgang von Kempelen received its fame by a good marketing, which was mainly effected by demonstrations of Kempelen’s automata throughout Europe at his journey in the years 1783/84 [2]. The Saxon major-domo Joseph Freiherr zu Racknitz reports about the presentation of the automata in Dresden 1784, that “the speaking machine aroused admiration, while the chess player also produced curiosity” [3]. In 1791, von Kempelen published his summarizing book about the speaking machine [4]. The chess player, however, was stored in the Schönbrunn castle for two decades. After von Kempelen’s death in 1804, the chess player (called “the Turk”) came into the ownership of Johann Nepomuk Mälzel (1772–1838). He was a famous German musician, engineer, automata constructor, and entertainer, who is known today mainly as the eponym of the metronome. He restored Kempelen’s chess player and demonstrated it together with his own constructions throughout Europe and, from 1825, in America [5]. It is not completely clear whether Mälzel also acquired a copy of the speaking machine from the estate of Kempelen. Anyhow, he came to Vienna already in 1992, where he certainly got in touch with Kempelen and his work. He was educated very well in constructing mechanical musical instruments like the famous “Panharmonicon” (1805) and instrument-playing automata like a spectacular trumpeter (1808). Therefore it appears logically, that he started to equip his automata with voices. As an instance, he presented an automatic tightrope walker, which spoke words like “Oh là là”. Best known, the chess player obtained in the winter season 1819/20 the ability to pronounce the word “échec” (check) [6]. Edgar Allan Poe mentions in his famous essay on “Maelzel’s Chess-Player” from 1836 [7]: “During the progress of the game, the figure now and then rolls its eyes, as if surveying the board, moves its head, and pronounces the word ‘echec’ (check) when necessary. [. . . ] The making the Turk pronounce the word ‘echec’, is an improvement by M. Maelzel. When in possession of Baron Kempelen, the figure indicated a ‘check’ by rapping on the box with his right hand.” 60 ISCA Archive http://www.isca-speech.org/archive First International Workshop on the History of Speech Communication Research (HSCR 2015) Dresden, Germany September 4-5, 2015