In 1935, a Black linguist recorded Louisiana Creole speakers on aluminium discs

There is something extraordinary about how memory finds its way back to us through our senses.

A familiar sound or voice can transport us to an entire world we thought existed only in the past.

But if you were ever to hear the voice of someone who lived centuries before you, that sound could catapult you into a new world of memory and history, making it the most palpable realisation of a past only ever seen in photographs or recorded in texts.For a linguist, hearing the voices preserved in forgotten recordings has offered a profoundly original way of understanding how people spoke, the expressions they used, and how languages became distinct within their communities.