influence of russian on AE

[Anne Lambert]

Isn't there also a word "nudnik" which I would understand as nude person or
someone involved with nudism?  If so, this would probably be Yiddish rather
than Russian. I don't see anything about the suffix "-nik" in DARE.  It
became popular with "Sputnik."

Sonja L Launspach wrote:

> I have a student in my introductory language studies class who is claiming
> that Russian is an important language which has influenced the dialects of
> the West coast--Pacific northwest and Alaska. My sense is that its
> influence would be limited--but I don't know for sure. Can anyone give me
> some idea, so I can respond to this student who is phrasing this lack as a
> serious flaw in the reading. For him the ommision of Russian calls into
> question the validity of the entire chapter on history of dialects--the
> reading is from Walt and Natalie's book on American English
>
> Thanks
> Sonja Launspach
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Sonja Launspach
> Assistant Professor Linguistics
> Dept.of English & Philosophy
> Idaho State University
> Pocatello, ID 83209
> 208-236-2478
> fax:208-236-4472
> email: sllauns at isu.edu