Proper relational database?

Anyone familiar with the issue would have to say that the tech world would be a significantly better place if IBM had developed a real relational database with an elegant query language rather than the awful camel of a thing that is SQL.

If I had a few $million to spend in a philanthropical manner, I would hire some of the best PG devs to develop a proper relational database server. Probably a query language that expressed the relational algebra in a scheme-like syntax, and the storage model would be properly relational (eg no duplicate rows).

It's an enormous tragedy that all the development effort that has gone into NoSQL database has pretty much all gotten it wrong: by all means throw out SQL, but not the relational model with it. They're all just rehashing the debate over hierarchical storage from the 70s. Comp Sci courses should feature a history class.

It's a bit odd to me that someone isn't working on such a thing.

Just curious what folks here have to say…