Answers for any questions

can a touchtone phone work without electricity

The phone requires a very low voltage to operate (6 to 12 V and 30 milliamperes of current). Now the question is where does it come from. The telephone exchange has dedicated copper wires that are connected to your phones ... That is why your telephone works even if there is no electricity at home.

No, it can't.

A "touchtone" (or "DTMF") phone has to generate those 2-tone bleeps and bloops that you hear when you send a phone number. It needs SOME source of electric current to operate chips or discrete oscillators that create those sounds. The current may come in through the phone wires if you're on a landline, or it may come from a battery if you're using a cellphone. But there has to be some source of power there.

Back in the old days, when the Flintstones had rotary dials on their phones, the dial just operated a switch, that opened and closed for each digit. Even then, a switch doesn't really do anything unless it's making and breaking an electric current, so there had to be a source of current flowing in the land-line wires and through the dial.