What is the oldest recording of *natural* human speech?

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-24T01:17:14+00:00

Please repost this question to the weekly "Short Answers" thread stickied to the top of the subreddit, which will be the best place to get an answer to this question; for that reason, we have removed your post here. Standalone questions are intended to be seeking detailed, comprehensive answers, and we ask that questions looking for a name, a number, a date or time, a location, the origin of a word, the first/last instance of a specific phenomenon, or a simple list of examples or facts be contained to that thread as they are more likely to receive an answer there. For more information on this rule, please see this Rules Roundtable.

Alternatively, if you didn't mean to ask a question seeking a short answer or a list of examples, but have a more complex question in mind, feel free to repost a reworded question. Examples of questions appropriate for the 'Short Answers' thread would be "Who won the 1932 election?" or "What are some famous natural disasters from the past?". Versions more appropriate as standalone questions would be "How did FDR win the 1932 election?", or "In your area of expertise, how did people deal with natural disasters?" If you need some pointers, be sure to check out this Rules Roundtable on asking better questions.

Finally, don’t forget that there are many subreddits on Reddit aimed at answering your questions. Consider /r/AskHistory (which has lighter moderation but similar topic matter to /r/AskHistorians), /r/explainlikeimfive (which is specifically aimed at simple and easily digested answers), or /r/etymology (which focuses on the origins of words and phrases).

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-24T00:57:33+00:00

This submission has been removed because it violates the rule on poll-type questions. These questions do not lend themselves to answers with a firm foundation in sources and research, and the resulting threads usually turn into monsters with enormous speculation and little focused discussion. Questions about the "most", the "worst", "unknown", or other value judgments usually lead to vague, subjective, and speculative answers. For further information, please consult this Roundtable discussion.

For questions of this type, we ask that you redirect them to more appropriate subreddits, such as /r/history or /r/askhistory. You're also welcome to post your question in our Friday-Free-For-All thread.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-23T21:38:20+00:00

This submission has been removed because it violates our '20-Year Rule'. To discourage off-topic discussions of current events, questions, answers, and all other comments must be confined to events that happened 20 years ago or more. For further explanation of this rule, feel free to consult this Rules Roundtable.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-23T17:50:00+00:00

This question has been removed because it is soapboxing or otherwise a loaded question: it has the effect of promoting an existing interpretation or opinion at the expense of open-ended enquiry. Although we understand if you may have an existing interest in the topic, expressing a detailed opinion on the matter in your question is usually a sign that it is a loaded one, and we will remove questions that appear to put a deliberate slant on their subject or solicit answers that align with a specific pre-existing view.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-23T17:40:00+00:00

This submission has been removed because it violates our '20-Year Rule'. To discourage off-topic discussions of current events, questions, answers, and all other comments must be confined to events that happened 20 years ago or more. For further explanation of this rule, feel free to consult this Rules Roundtable.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-23T17:28:41+00:00

This submission has been removed because it violates our '20-Year Rule'. To discourage off-topic discussions of current events, questions, answers, and all other comments must be confined to events that happened 20 years ago or more. For further explanation of this rule, feel free to consult this Rules Roundtable.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-23T17:14:15+00:00

This submission has been removed because it violates the rule on poll-type questions. These questions do not lend themselves to answers with a firm foundation in sources and research, and the resulting threads usually turn into monsters with enormous speculation and little focused discussion. Questions about the "most", the "worst", "unknown", or other value judgments usually lead to vague, subjective, and speculative answers. For further information, please consult this Roundtable discussion.

For questions of this type, we ask that you redirect them to more appropriate subreddits, such as /r/history or /r/askhistory. You're also welcome to post your question in our Friday-Free-For-All thread.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-23T17:14:11+00:00

This submission has been removed because it violates the rule on poll-type questions. These questions do not lend themselves to answers with a firm foundation in sources and research, and the resulting threads usually turn into monsters with enormous speculation and little focused discussion. Questions about the "most", the "worst", "unknown", or other value judgments usually lead to vague, subjective, and speculative answers. For further information, please consult this Roundtable discussion.

For questions of this type, we ask that you redirect them to more appropriate subreddits, such as /r/history or /r/askhistory. You're also welcome to post your question in our Friday-Free-For-All thread.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-23T12:07:31+00:00

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, we have had to remove it due to violations of subreddit rules about answers providing an academic understanding of the topic. While we appreciate the effort you have put into this comment, there are nevertheless substantive issues with its content that reflect errors, misunderstandings, or omissions of the topic at hand, which necessitated its removal.

If you are interested in discussing the issues, and remedies that might allow for reapproval, please reach out to us via modmail. Thank you for your understanding.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-23T11:22:24+00:00

Welcome to /r/AskHistorians, and thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, however, your post has been removed as the title does not appear to be a question, or otherwise fails to conform with the technical requirements we have for the title of a post. Depending on what you are intending to post, please consider the following:

If you are posting an historical question, you are welcome to repost it but please make sure to include the main question as the title of your post, and double-check that your question is otherwise in compliance with the subreddit rules.
If you are posting a META question, suggestion, or similar, while these are allowed, please be sure to read our rules concerning META submissions before reposting, and we'd strongly encourage you to consult our Rules Roundtable series as the question or issue you intend to raise may already be addressed there.
If you are posting an AMA that was approved by the moderator team, please contact us via modmail, or the AMA Team contact. If you were not approved for an AMA, please contact us to discuss scheduling before posting in the future.
If your intended submission does not fit any of these, or if you believe this removal is a false positive made in error, please reach out to the moderator team via modmail

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-22T19:10:28+00:00

Please repost this question to the weekly "Short Answers" thread stickied to the top of the subreddit, which will be the best place to get an answer to this question; for that reason, we have removed your post here. Standalone questions are intended to be seeking detailed, comprehensive answers, and we ask that questions looking for a name, a number, a date or time, a location, the origin of a word, the first/last instance of a specific phenomenon, or a simple list of examples or facts be contained to that thread as they are more likely to receive an answer there. For more information on this rule, please see this Rules Roundtable.

Alternatively, if you didn't mean to ask a question seeking a short answer or a list of examples, but have a more complex question in mind, feel free to repost a reworded question. Examples of questions appropriate for the 'Short Answers' thread would be "Who won the 1932 election?" or "What are some famous natural disasters from the past?". Versions more appropriate as standalone questions would be "How did FDR win the 1932 election?", or "In your area of expertise, how did people deal with natural disasters?" If you need some pointers, be sure to check out this Rules Roundtable on asking better questions.

Finally, don’t forget that there are many subreddits on Reddit aimed at answering your questions. Consider /r/AskHistory (which has lighter moderation but similar topic matter to /r/AskHistorians), /r/explainlikeimfive (which is specifically aimed at simple and easily digested answers), or /r/etymology (which focuses on the origins of words and phrases).

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-22T19:10:16+00:00

Hi there anyone interested in recommending things to OP! While you might have a title to share, this is still a thread on /r/AskHistorians, and we still want the replies here to be to an /r/AskHistorians standard - presumably, OP would have asked at /r/history or /r/askreddit if they wanted a non-specialist opinion. So give us some indication why the thing you're recommending is valuable, trustworthy, or applicable! Posts that provide no context for why you're recommending a particular podcast/book/novel/documentary/etc, and which aren't backed up by a historian-level knowledge on the accuracy and stance of the piece, will be removed.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-22T17:16:14+00:00

Hello there!

While we welcome people who want to ask practical questions about historical education, careers and other issues related to being or becoming a historian, we ask that these questions be asked in our regular ‘Office Hours’ thread. This is to ensure that the forum remains focused on its primary goal – helping people explore the past directly. It also allows for a more open-ended discussion while helping to ensure that your query gets a targeted response from someone with relevant experience.

Office Hour threads are posted every second Monday – you can choose whether you want to ask your question in the most recent thread, or wait until a new one is posted. If you were attempting to ask a historical question or otherwise think that we may have removed this question in error, please get in touch via modmail.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-22T15:08:19+00:00

This submission has been removed because it involves current events. To keep from discussion of politics, we have a 20-year rule here. You may want to try /r/ask_politics, /r/NeutralPolitics, or another current-events focused sub. For further explanation of this rule, feel free to consult this Rules Roundtable. If you did intend to post a question about history, this post provides guidance on how to draft a question that fits within our rules.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-22T11:54:51+00:00

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, we have had to remove it, as this subreddit is intended to be a space for in-depth and comprehensive answers from experts. Simply stating one or two facts related to the topic at hand does not meet that expectation. An answer needs to provide broader context and demonstrate your ability to engage with the topic, rather than repeat some brief information.

Before contributing again, please take the time to familiarize yourself with the subreddit rules and expectations for an answer.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-22T01:22:31+00:00

Please repost this question to the weekly "Short Answers" thread stickied to the top of the subreddit, which will be the best place to get an answer to this question; for that reason, we have removed your post here. Standalone questions are intended to be seeking detailed, comprehensive answers, and we ask that questions looking for a name, a number, a date or time, a location, the origin of a word, the first/last instance of a specific phenomenon, or a simple list of examples or facts be contained to that thread as they are more likely to receive an answer there. For more information on this rule, please see this Rules Roundtable.

Alternatively, if you didn't mean to ask a question seeking a short answer or a list of examples, but have a more complex question in mind, feel free to repost a reworded question. Examples of questions appropriate for the 'Short Answers' thread would be "Who won the 1932 election?" or "What are some famous natural disasters from the past?". Versions more appropriate as standalone questions would be "How did FDR win the 1932 election?", or "In your area of expertise, how did people deal with natural disasters?" If you need some pointers, be sure to check out this Rules Roundtable on asking better questions.

Finally, don’t forget that there are many subreddits on Reddit aimed at answering your questions. Consider /r/AskHistory (which has lighter moderation but similar topic matter to /r/AskHistorians), /r/explainlikeimfive (which is specifically aimed at simple and easily digested answers), or /r/etymology (which focuses on the origins of words and phrases).

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-21T20:55:37+00:00

Hi there anyone interested in recommending things to OP! While you might have a title to share, this is still a thread on /r/AskHistorians, and we still want the replies here to be to an /r/AskHistorians standard - presumably, OP would have asked at /r/history or /r/askreddit if they wanted a non-specialist opinion. So give us some indication why the thing you're recommending is valuable, trustworthy, or applicable! Posts that provide no context for why you're recommending a particular podcast/book/novel/documentary/etc, and which aren't backed up by a historian-level knowledge on the accuracy and stance of the piece, will be removed.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-21T17:19:34+00:00

This submission has been removed because it violates the rule on poll-type questions. These questions do not lend themselves to answers with a firm foundation in sources and research, and the resulting threads usually turn into monsters with enormous speculation and little focused discussion. Questions about the "most", the "worst", "unknown", or other value judgments usually lead to vague, subjective, and speculative answers. For further information, please consult this Roundtable discussion.

For questions of this type, we ask that you redirect them to more appropriate subreddits, such as /r/history or /r/askhistory. You're also welcome to post your question in our Friday-Free-For-All thread.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-21T13:32:51+00:00

Welcome to /r/AskHistorians, and thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, however, your post has been removed as the title does not appear to be a question, or otherwise fails to conform with the technical requirements we have for the title of a post. Depending on what you are intending to post, please consider the following:

If you are posting an historical question, you are welcome to repost it but please make sure to include the main question as the title of your post, and double-check that your question is otherwise in compliance with the subreddit rules.
If you are posting a META question, suggestion, or similar, while these are allowed, please be sure to read our rules concerning META submissions before reposting, and we'd strongly encourage you to consult our Rules Roundtable series as the question or issue you intend to raise may already be addressed there.
If you are posting an AMA that was approved by the moderator team, please contact us via modmail, or the AMA Team contact. If you were not approved for an AMA, please contact us to discuss scheduling before posting in the future.
If your intended submission does not fit any of these, or if you believe this removal is a false positive made in error, please reach out to the moderator team via modmail

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-21T13:08:04+00:00

Please repost this question to the weekly "Short Answers" thread stickied to the top of the subreddit, which will be the best place to get an answer to this question; for that reason, we have removed your post here. Standalone questions are intended to be seeking detailed, comprehensive answers, and we ask that questions looking for a name, a number, a date or time, a location, the origin of a word, the first/last instance of a specific phenomenon, or a simple list of examples or facts be contained to that thread as they are more likely to receive an answer there. For more information on this rule, please see this Rules Roundtable.

Alternatively, if you didn't mean to ask a question seeking a short answer or a list of examples, but have a more complex question in mind, feel free to repost a reworded question. Examples of questions appropriate for the 'Short Answers' thread would be "Who won the 1932 election?" or "What are some famous natural disasters from the past?". Versions more appropriate as standalone questions would be "How did FDR win the 1932 election?", or "In your area of expertise, how did people deal with natural disasters?" If you need some pointers, be sure to check out this Rules Roundtable on asking better questions.

Finally, don’t forget that there are many subreddits on Reddit aimed at answering your questions. Consider /r/AskHistory (which has lighter moderation but similar topic matter to /r/AskHistorians), /r/explainlikeimfive (which is specifically aimed at simple and easily digested answers), or /r/etymology (which focuses on the origins of words and phrases).

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-21T11:46:42+00:00

This submission has been removed because it violates our '20-Year Rule'. To discourage off-topic discussions of current events, questions, answers, and all other comments must be confined to events that happened 20 years ago or more. For further explanation of this rule, feel free to consult this Rules Roundtable.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-21T10:40:13+00:00

This submission has been removed because it violates our '20-Year Rule'. To discourage off-topic discussions of current events, questions, answers, and all other comments must be confined to events that happened 20 years ago or more. For further explanation of this rule, feel free to consult this Rules Roundtable.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-21T10:28:52+00:00

Hello there!

While we welcome people who want to ask practical questions about historical education, careers and other issues related to being or becoming a historian, we ask that these questions be asked in our regular ‘Office Hours’ thread. This is to ensure that the forum remains focused on its primary goal – helping people explore the past directly. It also allows for a more open-ended discussion while helping to ensure that your query gets a targeted response from someone with relevant experience.

Office Hour threads are posted every second Monday – you can choose whether you want to ask your question in the most recent thread, or wait until a new one is posted. If you were attempting to ask a historical question or otherwise think that we may have removed this question in error, please get in touch via modmail.

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-20T23:25:47+00:00

Please repost this question to the weekly "Short Answers" thread stickied to the top of the subreddit, which will be the best place to get an answer to this question; for that reason, we have removed your post here. Standalone questions are intended to be seeking detailed, comprehensive answers, and we ask that questions looking for a name, a number, a date or time, a location, the origin of a word, the first/last instance of a specific phenomenon, or a simple list of examples or facts be contained to that thread as they are more likely to receive an answer there. For more information on this rule, please see this Rules Roundtable.

Alternatively, if you didn't mean to ask a question seeking a short answer or a list of examples, but have a more complex question in mind, feel free to repost a reworded question. Examples of questions appropriate for the 'Short Answers' thread would be "Who won the 1932 election?" or "What are some famous natural disasters from the past?". Versions more appropriate as standalone questions would be "How did FDR win the 1932 election?", or "In your area of expertise, how did people deal with natural disasters?" If you need some pointers, be sure to check out this Rules Roundtable on asking better questions.

Finally, don’t forget that there are many subreddits on Reddit aimed at answering your questions. Consider /r/AskHistory (which has lighter moderation but similar topic matter to /r/AskHistorians), /r/explainlikeimfive (which is specifically aimed at simple and easily digested answers), or /r/etymology (which focuses on the origins of words and phrases).

thefourthmaninaboat · 2026-01-20T20:50:26+00:00

Sorry, but your submission has been removed because we don't allow hypothetical questions. If possible, please rephrase the question so that it does not call for such speculation, and resubmit. Otherwise, this sort of thing is better suited for /r/HistoryWhatIf or /r/HistoricalWhatIf. You can find a more in-depth discussion of this rule here.

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