this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026
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Dude, I'm trying to learn German and those goddamn articles are so infuriating. I wonder how difficult it would be for there to be a linguistic reform to make it simpler
Quite the statement for an English comment. English spelling is nonsensical and in desperate need of a major reform. RobWords even made the case for using runes again as it would probably fix a lot of issues already. The language simply isn't made for Latin letters.
But I don't want to make this a sole whataboutism comment. Each language poses it's own challenges. I will say that changing how roughly 100 million speak is easier said than done and would destroy a lot of culture. It would be much easier to force everyone to speak a different language entirely.
Personally I don't think it should or could be done at all. Unlike a spelling reform that English needs desperately and German had plenty of recently. There is nothing wrong with a language being complicated but there's plenty wrong with arbitrary spelling if you ask me.
Gendered nouns in German are just as stupid and arbitrary as spelling in English. Why is a pencil masculine? Why is beer neutral but coffee masculine? Why is school feminine?
It's that way because languages grow naturally and are part of a culture. Although if you have breakfast with people from different parts of Germany or even just different households, you may find yourself arguing about the nouns of a popular nougat cream brand. It's quite controversial for some reason.
Whatever the case, the same can't be said about spelling, however. Writing is often reformed in many languages many times and it generally works. A language changes the way we think as much as the way we think shapes how we speak. You can't really reform how people speak from the top. It either happens or it doesn't.