I would also love to see a new language for writing declarative queries. I also feel people don't like sql not for the language itself, but the lack of tooling.
One might say that if SQL was so great there would be no ORMs -- because there would be no need.
The ORMs, if anything, are a symptom of the larger problem that is SQL.
It's not like the ORMs exist without SQL. Their primary purpose is to provide a consistent interface between different flavors of SQL so the application developer doesn't need to care what database they're using.
For example, delimiting object names in Mysql uses ` and in Postgres uses ". The ORM will ostensibly have different adapters which take care of these differences without changing the application code.
That's because TINA: There is No Alternative.