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Ney

Musical Instrument
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

An end-blown reed flute central to Persian and Turkish classical music

Detailed Definition
The ney’s breathy, melancholic tone appears in Sufi poetry to symbolize the soul’s longing for divine union; Rumi’s famous metaphor of the reed cut from its bed makes it a universal emblem of separation, yearning, and lyrical transcendence in mystical verse.
Example
Example in poetry:
Persian poets compare the ney’s breath to “the sigh of separated reeds”; Rumi opens the Masnavi with ney’s lament: “Listen to the ney, how it complains of separation”; Its holes map human wounds; “Ney plays—desert becomes ocean of longing.”
Additional Notes
The ney is an end-blown Middle Eastern flute made of reed, central to Sufi music; its breathy, imperfect tone embodies human longing for the divine—ideal for poems about spiritual yearning (especially in Rumi’s tradition), the crack in the voice as path to truth, or the flute as symbol of emptiness filled by breath and grace.
Also Known As
Ney flute
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