In a way it seems quite strange that Russian (and most other Slavic languages) have retained this monster level of complexity when most other modern Indo-European languages have become greatly simplified over the last 2000 years or so…
(Obviously, such considerations are of no practical help to the learner…but still…)
JayB - My Russian friends tell me they spend an inordinate amount of time at school learning grammar. If true this would appear to suggest that the complex grammar is upheld in an artificial fashion rather than just let the language develop naturally, which would cause it to lose/change endings, much in the same way Latin did (if Latin was actually ever spoken in its written form), when it evolved into the various romance languages.
Imyirtseshem wrote: “Also, just having a written form can possibly cause features to be retained.”
I think this is certainly the main reason, why languages don’t change that much anymore.
Until roughly 100 years ago, there was not widespread literacy in Russia, neither for the last 1000 years or so across all of europe. So the complexity of Slavic grammar, or any other complex/unusual language group surely can’t be attributed to a focus on grammar in the school system; these intricate case systems existed and survived before formal schooling.
I was always thinking about how to master and even perfect my grammar skills, so I decided to search the Web, and found sitelinks. Mastering Grammar is very important for all those young and ambitious English learners!