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WI: The phonograph is invented in the Middle Ages or Roman times.?
Let's say during in the High Middle Ages or Roman times a child runs a stick over the bumps on a wall and listens to the noise and thinks 'what if I could arrange the bumps to make a certain noise?' Sixty years of obsessive compulsive pursuit later and you have a cylinder that can record sound.
What effect would this have?
A few great performers, leaders get recorded? Imagine listening to Julius Caesar orate his Gallic Wars.
Songs and speeches get reduced to 3 minutes?
You can study what a language actually sounded like from hundreds of years ago?
Language becomes codified quicker? A standardized unchanging elite or common language that you can listen to Cicero himself property conjugate and pronounce correctly.
When the telegraph is developed the primary impetus is to marry it to the phonograph?
The actual indisputable words of religious leaders? “and you will receive 70 refreshing grapes...” Of course this could go the other way: “What did he say?” “Blessed are the Cheese makers!” And then there is the whole how do you know the record is really...?