The printing press froze the written German language before natural language evolution had a chance to simplify the declensional system.
So, language nuts: how much time would have sufficed for German to simplify "sufficiently" ? Another couple of hundred years ?
A two hundred year delay in the introduction of the printing press certainly would have changed German and European history.
Considering movable type was in China in 1040 (Bi Sheng, inventor) I wonder if there are any extant presses there.
I have a vandercook 325g press from 1947 and I thought that was old.
It took me the entire web page to understand that the display is in Antwerpen, Belgium.
Maybe I am the one and only ignorant to not know it, but I am pretty sure I am not alone.
Nowadays we give a lot of stuff for granted.