Cornelius Beach Bradley (November 18, 1843 – February 18, 1936) was an American English-language scholar. He served as professor of rhetoric at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

(then called the University of California), and also extensively studied the Thai language. Bradley was born and grew up in

Siam Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 mi ...

, the son of missionary

Dan Beach Bradley Dan Beach Bradley (18 July 1804 – 23 June 1873) was an American Protestant missionary to Siam from 1835 until his death. He is credited with numerous firsts, including, bringing the first Thai-script printing press to Siam, publishing the first T ...

, and also did missionary work in the country after graduating from

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

in the United States. He returned to the United States in 1874, becoming a teacher and vice-principal at Oakland High School, before joining the faculty of the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

in 1882. He was also known for mountaineering, especially in the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

. Bradley was the father of Harold Cornelius Bradley, a professor of biochemistry at UW-Madison, and grandfather of Charles C. Bradley, a professor of geology at Montana State College.

Thai language research

Bradley was a

first language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...

speaker of

Thai Thai or THAI may refer to: * Of or from Thailand, a country in Southeast Asia ** Thai people, the dominant ethnic group of Thailand ** Thai language, a Tai-Kadai language spoken mainly in and around Thailand *** Thai script *** Thai (Unicode block ...

and did some of the earliest linguistic analysis of the language, including studies of its tones, vowels, and writing system.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradley, Cornelius Beach American academics of English literature Thai studies scholars Protestant missionaries in Thailand University of California, Berkeley faculty Cornelius Beach Bradley 1843 births 1936 deaths Oberlin College alumni