Fourth president of Iceland (1980-1996).
"the first woman in the world to be democratically elected as a
constitutional head of state" (Crystal)
"Though the presidency is mostly ceremonial, Vigdís became an active president, using the role to represent the nation and to inform the
national identity through cultural initiatives."
She had a strong background in language, literature and theatre,
especially French.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigd%C3%ADs_Finnbogad%C3%B3ttir
And (what Crystal considers "her main legacy for this book" is her
completion of a project having to do with the preservation and
encouragement of languages....
For some reason this is not mentioned in the above Wikipedia article.
But it is described here:
https://english.hi.is/university/verold_vigdis_house
The mission statement that Crystal quotes is a bit long to type out, and somewhat lacking in concrete particulars. But he says:
"It was the linguistic success story of the decade -- a decade [2000s]
in which other projects for 'houses of languages' had failed for a
combination of political and financial reasons."
Anybody familiar with any of these other projects?
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