Nicholas Cleaveland Bodman (July 27, 1913 – June 29, 1997) was an American linguist who made fundamental contributions to the study of historical Chinese phonology and Sino-Tibetan languages. Bodman was born in Chicago in 1913.He entered Harvard in 1935, but left after one year and spent several years doing office work and traveling in Europe.He joined the United States Navy in 1941, and was assigned to Station HYPO at Pearl Harbor in early 1942 to join the team working to decipher Japanese naval codes.He retired from the navy in 1945 with the rank of Lieutenant commander.