Is there a musical "feen" out there?
July 18, 2006 12:32 PM   Subscribe

Do you know of a musical instrument that has name that sounds like "feen"?

I don't know how it is spelled, which is interfering with my Google-fu. Phonetically, the name sounds like "feen".

I also don't know what type of instrument it is, or how it is played, or where it is from.
posted by donajo to Media & Arts (5 answers total)
 
Did you check wikipedia's list? Could it be "veena"?
posted by milkrate at 12:48 PM on July 18, 2006


Response by poster: I have been looking at several Wikipedia lists.

It's definitely a one-syllable word, so I don't think it could be "veena". I guess it could start with a V, though.
posted by donajo at 1:00 PM on July 18, 2006


Response by poster: I found a Thai instrument called a "phin", which is like a guitar. Does anyone know if that would be pronounced like "feen"?
posted by donajo at 1:10 PM on July 18, 2006


Since "phin" is a phonetic version of whatever the word is in the Thai alphabet, I would think it'd come out "-een" if it were pronounced that way. And this page indicates that "ph" is pronounced like English "p" rather than "f"...
posted by staggernation at 3:52 PM on July 18, 2006


Best answer: actually, the romanization of Thai often uses the letter i for the ee sound - examples include Siam, Silom, Chonburi, etc.

A couple things to keep in mind here are (1) that romanization is not just for English speakers, and written i for (English) ee is quite common in other languages and (2) that there is no standard romanization in Thai.
posted by whatzit at 7:21 PM on July 18, 2006


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