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This paper focuses on an early instance of the concept of voice onset time (VOT) which is traditionally associated with the work of Leigh Lisker and Arthur Abramson in the 1960s. Evidence is presented here that the idea behind VOT . if not the name . is much older than commonly thought. A publication of an Armenian scientist who worked at the Abbe Rousselot's experimental phonetics laboratory at the Sorbonne in the late 19th century is discussed. That researcher studied several varieties of Armenian and categorized them in terms of what is nowadays called VOT. His paper can be regarded as an exemplar of "modern" phonetic thinking long before the evolution of digital sound processing.