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.