The article's argument doesn't seem right. French and German had comparable spelling consistency within dialects before printing, although they had much more di

The article's argument doesn't seem right. French and German had comparable spelling consistency within dialects before printing, although they had much more divergent dialects than English. The difference between them and English is that English went through a massive series of sound changes after the orthography was set, whereas German didn't. French did, but the sound changes were mostly deletions, leaving a relatively regular spelling.