Pipa
The pipa is a Chinese lute. It is among the most well-known instruments in Chinese traditional music and is very versatile, being used as a solo or ensemble instrument.
Etymology
Pipa (琵琶 in Mandarin) is a loanword from languages spoken west of China. The term is comparable to similar terms from Farsi and Ancient Greek.
Ancestry
The oud and other lutes migrated across the Silk Road, being adopted by various cultures and evolving into their own instruments. Eventually, it reached China during either its Qin or Tang dynasties. It wasn't until the Han dynasty when the pipa became a household name among Chinese musicians, though at the time, it wasn't as prestigious as the guqin, a zither. Unlike the oud and other lutes, the pipa is played upright. This is merely the result of bipedalism. This trait was passed on to the Japanese biwa and other lutes in the clade.