Well, I suppose the printing press has a way of blocking progress. Some languages did manage to update their orthography more recently though, e.g. Lithuanian.

Well, I suppose the printing press has a way of blocking progress. Some languages did manage to update their orthography more recently though, e.g. Lithuanian. If you look at the former Soviet Union (CIS), you can see a shift away from Russian Cyrillic, so I suppose given enough political incentive, such changes are in fact possible.