Are there still a lot of texts that were written in Latin but were never translated into English?

by agotasaidwhat

I heard the existence of these texts used as an argument in favor of studying Latin.

Is it true that there are a lot of works that were never translated into English?

P.S. By texts, I mean books, both non-fiction like history and fiction.

sunagainstgold

Absolutely! There are libraries upon libraries of untranslated--in some cases uncatalogued, meaning we don't know what's in them--Latin manuscripts. Most of it is from the Middle Ages or the early modern era.

And most of it will never be translated. See, translation work does not earn academics the same "credit" towards tenure and promotions that publishing original articles and books does, so there is little professional incentive. And a lot of the texts are considered more obscure and specialized (how many commentaries on Lombard's Sentences need to see the light of day ever again?), so the assumption is that most people who would be interested, are those who'd use them for research and need the Latin anyway. (My time on AskHistorians has shown me that a surprising number of people just sit around reading antique primary sources for the heck of it, so this assumption is wrong, but it is what it is from a publishing standpoint.)