language evolution - Irregular verbs in English


The English language has a huge number of irregular verbs(~470). This is significantly more than other languages e.g. French (~130), German (~200)


Irregular verbs make the English language notoriously difficult to learn for non-native speakers.


And yet English is arguably the most spoken language internationally:



Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca, is the dominant language or in some instances even the required international language of communications, science, information technology, business, seafaring, aviation, entertainment, radio and diplomacy.


-Wikipedia("English Language") (Emphasis mine)



My question is: Why is there no move to introduce regular versions of verbs as acceptable alternatives of irregular ones? Could we even drop the irregular verbs all together?


Is it simply a case of tradition? Or is it impossible to forcibly manipulate a language- what has history taught us?




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