> > The second is that pronunciation inherently shifts over time so you must continually tinker with spelling > Not really? Last spelling change was before WW2

> > The second is that pronunciation inherently shifts over time so you must continually tinker with spelling > Not really? Last spelling change was before WW2 I am not an expert but I've taken a class called language variation and identity, and I can tell you at least that this is a generally accepted principle of language evolution, that one of the most common ways that languages change is by shifting pronunciation over long periods of time. There is also always a counter-example to every rule such as this one; this is not a hard science like chemistry or physics where the results will be the same every time, but the general principals are definitely reoccurring all the time in all languages. Consonants that are difficult to say will be "elided," or omitted in colloquial pronunciations, and sometimes this will result in a spelling change. Phonemes will be "assimilated" into the other sounds that they are nearby so that the combinations are easier to say, or easier to distinguish from one another, and sometimes this will also result in a spelling change. Or you can imagine sometimes language might change for no other reason than because a new large migrant population finds a word is confusingly similar to a swear/curse expression from their native language, and it makes them uncomfortable to pronounce it in the native way... or more predictably because the migrant population does not agree on the pronunciation of a vowel, the regional dialect may change over time to favor their native pronunciation. Or other reasons we won't have thought of, but these changes are often gradual and not noticeable by a person within their lifetime. That the last spelling change in Poland was before WW2 does not sound like strong evidence that it does not undergo the same transformations over time. Some languages with stricter phonetic rules about how spelling of words maps directly to pronunciation may shift less. Some changes are harder to detect from written records of the language (especially vowel shifts.) Sometimes a linguistic authority will intervene, with varying degrees of success, to prevent (or instigate) a change. Even in Polish, if you go back far enough you might be surprised: this poster on Stack Exchange[1] seems to be saying that there was a big vowel shift in Polish, but it was more than 400 years ago. [1]: https://english.stackexchange.com/a/127564 https://english.stackexchange.com/a/127564