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Rabab

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

A short-necked lute from Central and South Asia, with a skin-covered body and sympathetic strings

Detailed Definition
The rabab’s resonant, percussive tone appears in Pashto and Punjabi poetry to symbolize warrior ethos, Sufi devotion, and oral epic tradition; its association with the poet-saint Kabir makes it a vessel for spiritual and social critique in lyrical verse.
Example
Example in poetry:
Persian poets describe the rabab as “the lute of Rumi’s tears”; Its skin face holds desert heat; “Rabab strings—each pluck a Sufi’s sigh”; In war-torn verse, the rabab’s voice survives: “Bombs fall, but rabab sings of roses.”
Additional Notes
The rabab is a bowed or plucked lute found across Central, South, and West Asia; the Afghan rubab (plucked) and Seni rabab (bowed, ancestor of sarod) differ significantly—poets should specify context to explore Sufi devotion, courtly refinement, or the rabab as root of North Indian classical string traditions.
Also Known As
Afghan rabab rubab
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