[RTFM_PLEASE]

1) 50 years of backwards compatibility.

2) It is not necessary.

C's terse syntax is not hard to understand for anyone who actually uses the language. Most of the comments here are from people who do not.

[xigoi]

You can add new syntax without destroying backward compatibility, as long as it doesn't conflict with existing syntax. C++ took C and added the std::unique_ptr<int> syntax, which is much more readable.