From Material to Meaning: The Sensory and Conceptual Life of Silk in Turkish

This article examines silk as a meaning-generating material in Turkish, where sensory, material, and cultural dimensions intersect. Rather than treating silk as a mere lexical item, it approaches ipek as a semantic and conceptual field shaped by the sensory properties of textile materiality. Drawing on lexical, historical, and semantic evidence, the study shows that ipek refers not only to a fiber but also to qualities such as softness, brightness, delicacy, and visual appeal. These qualities enable the term to extend beyond its literal meaning into broader domains, including the body, plants, animals, objects, technical terminology, and place names. Expressions like “silk hair” and “silk skin” demonstrate how silk functions as a medium for articulating embodied perception and aesthetic value. The article argues that ipek holds a distinctive position in Turkish as both a material substance and a cultural signifier. By tracing the semantic and conceptual range of ipek, the study contributes to textile studies by showing how cloth persists in language as a carrier of sensory memory, bodily imagination, and cultural meaning, offering a linguistic and cultural perspective within material and visual culture.