Abstract
Ancient man often took his ability of speech as a symbol of divine origin. Not unnaturally, he sometimes ascribed the same ability to his gods. Pagan priests, eager to fulfill great expectations, frequently tried to make their idols speak directly to the people. Talking statues, miraculous voices and oracles were well known in the Greek and Roman civilizations — the voice usually coming to the artificial mouth via cleverly concealed speaking tubes. Throughout early times the capacity of “artificial speech” to amaze, amuse and influence its listeners was remarkably well appreciated and exploited.
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© 1972 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Flanagan, J.L. (1972). Speech Synthesis. In: Speech Analysis Synthesis and Perception. Kommunikation und Kybernetik in Einzeldarstellugen, vol 3. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-01562-9_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-01562-9_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-662-01564-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-01562-9
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