A word and a thing: from the history of the word sarpinka ‘thin striped or checkered cotton fabric’

This article discusses the history of the word sarpinka, which is rarely used today, but was previously widely known in the meaning of “thin striped or checkered cotton fabric”. It was considered to have originated from the toponyms Sarepta (city)  or the Sarpa River. But in the Far Eastern dialects of the Amur region, the word sarpinka was associated with China. Based on a research of Chinese sources, we established that a fabric similar to sarpinka was indeed imported into the border regions of Russia, but it had other names. Further research into the history of the word has shown that another hypothesis can be proposed: the word sarpinka is a Persian-Turkish loanword, originally derived from Persian sär (sar) ‘head’, then from Turkish särpänäk ‘women’s headdress’ (made of rare linen fabric) and/or sarband ‘headband, turban’.