title: Andrew Nelson (lexicographer)
text: Andrew Nathaniel Nelson (December 23, 1893 – May 17, 1975) was an American missionary and scholar of East Asian languages and literature, best known for his work in Japanese lexicography.
  
  Biography
  He was born in Great Falls, Montana to Swedish immigrant parents and earned his B.A. from Walla Walla University. In 1918, he began his long career of service in the Seventh-day Adventist missions of East Asia, where he gained particular distinction in the fields of general education and language training. The University of Washington awarded Nelson a Ph.D. in 1938 for his dissertation on The origin, history, and present status of the temples of Japan.
  
  After retiring from missionary work in 1961, he was preoccupied with placing the finishing touches on his masterpiece, The Modern Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary, which first appeared in print the following year. The work, which was posthumously revised and expanded by a team led by John H. Haig at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, was reissued in 1997 as The New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary; however, many scholars, teachers, and students continue to use the original edition of Nelson's dictionary, which has remained in print, because of changes made in Haig's edition that are viewed as impairing the functionality of the work. It is one of the most authoritative Kanji dictionaries for English learners of the language, and displays particular sensitivity to the difficulties they may have with the Kangxi radical system traditionally used to classify Kanji.
  
  Nelson died in Hong Kong.
  
  Administrator
  
  Philippine Union College
  
  While President of Philippine Union College, Nelson also served as a chaplain at the New Bilibid Prison. On January 19, 1951, he provided pastoral support for the fourteen executed that day, thirteen of them were part of the Nakamura Case.
  
  Founded Mountain View College
  
  Nelson describes the founding of Mountain View College in a report published in the March 17, 1953, Youth's Instructor. They established a list of criteria based on the values of Adventist Education and then explored the vast territory of the South Philippines looking for land which met the criteria.
  
  Works 
  
  Nelson's Kanji Dictionary
  
  See also
  
  Dwight Nelson
   Seventh-day Adventist Church
   Seventh-day Adventist theology
   Seventh-day Adventist eschatology
   History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
   Teachings of Ellen G. White
   Inspiration of Ellen G. White
   Prophecy in the Seventh-day Adventist Church
   Investigative judgment
   Pillars of Adventism
   Second Coming
   Conditional Immortality
   Historicism
   Three Angels' Messages
   Sabbath in seventh-day churches
   Ellen G. White
   Adventism
   Seventh-day Adventist Church Pioneers
   Seventh-day Adventist worship
  
  References
  
  External links
  Basic biographical details 
  University of Washington library catalog entry for Nelson's Ph.D. thesis
  "The Origin, History and Present Status of the Temples of Japan" thesis scanned text
   Nelson, Andrew N. Pioneering a New College in the Philippines. The Youth's Instructor. March 17, 1953, p. 12
  
  1893 births
  1975 deaths
  Seventh-day Adventist religious workers
  American lexicographers
  Linguists from the United States
  American expatriates in Japan
  American Japanologists
  Japanese literature academics
  People from Great Falls, Montana
  American people of Swedish descent
  American Seventh-day Adventist missionaries
  Walla Walla University alumni
  Seventh-day Adventist missionaries in Japan
  20th-century linguists
  Missionary linguists
  20th-century lexicographers