Names and Spellings

Rebab is not one fixed spelling with one fixed instrument behind it. The name belongs to a wider family of […]

Rebap and rebab usually point to the same broad instrument-name family, but they do not always point to the same

Rubob and rubab usually point to the same broad family of skin-topped lutes, but the spelling can signal region, language,

Rababa and rabab can point to related string-instrument traditions, but they should not be treated as one neat instrument name.

A rababa is usually a bowed spike fiddle of the Arab world, known for a direct, vocal sound and a

Rubāb is not a decorative spelling of rubab. The mark over the letter a is a macron, and it tells

A reader can meet the same instrument family under several English spellings: rebab, rabab, rubab, rubāb, rabāb, robab, rebap, and

Rebab and rubab are not always two separate instruments. In many music traditions, they are different English spellings for related

The difference between “rabab” and “rubab” is not always a matter of spelling alone. Both words come from the same

Both spellings — rebab and rabab — trace back to the same Arabic word: رباب, transcribed as rabāb in scholarly