Recordings of South Asian Languages and Music in the Lautarchiv of the Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin

This chapter gives an overview of the sound recordings of South Asian soldiers and civilians from the First World War stored in the Lautarchiv of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Prisoners of war became ‘objects’ of linguistic research when, in 1915, a commission of researchers received the official sanction to record the numerous languages and dialects that were spoken by the cosmopolitan assortment of ‘enemy’ soldiers and civilians in Germany's prison camps. The recordings of voices, languages, dialects and music of interned soldiers and civilians for research purposes account for a significant part of the collection, but there were also other areas of focus.