Why not get rid of the irregular forms?

Why not get rid of the irregular forms?

In addition to English spelling, which a lot of learners find chaotic, the English language receives another undeserved complaint: it has too many irregular forms. This complaint comes from a common desire among learners to find a rule for everything they see in the language. It also originates from the general tendency in humans to avoid irregularities because irregular forms need to be memorised and thus require more brain power to retain. A lot of learners might have asked themselves, ‘Why do we have went as the past form of go? Why not just use goed?’ Below are two common answers given by scholars:

All naturally existing languages started in their spoken form and have gone – and still go – through evolution. In the process, certain forms appear in them, which cannot be justified by any of their grammatical rules. Some words might enter the language from foreign languages, and vowel shifts and pronunciation variations may happen due to geographic separation of two tribes that used to speak the same language with the same accent. These also happen with manmade languages, which started out as written languages, although the process is much slower.

English is for its speakers, not for its learners. As native speakers of English pass on their language from generation to generation, they never think of the struggling student who is sulking at the irregular verb forms. To them, their language is as natural as any other language. Replacing the irregular form went the supposedly regular goed would sound bizarre to them.

There is also another theory that is worth discussing – but not here – which states that there is no irregular form in a language and that irregular forms come from deeper layers of rules than just the grammar. Would you like to do some research on this topic?