Annalen

Annalen is a German noun meaning "annals" or "yearbooks." It derives from the plural of Annale, which itself comes from the Latin annales, and it is used to refer to chronicles and records kept over time. In everyday German, Annalen can denote historical year-by-year records, and it also appears in the titles of publications that present ongoing scholarly results.

Historically, many German-language journals used Annalen in their titles to signal a formal, cumulative record of research. The best-known example is Annalen der Physik, a long-running physics journal, with analogous titles appearing in chemistry, medicine, and natural history. The exact scope and continuity of such publications vary by journal.

As a genre, annals or annales are records produced by states, churches, universities, or learned societies to document events, appointments, financial matters, or notable occurrences within a specific domain, often organized year by year. They serve as primary sources for historians and researchers, though the level of interpretation and editorial content differs between works.

In contemporary usage, Annalen largely appears in fixed phrases or as part of the proper names of journals. Outside those contexts, the word is relatively rare in everyday language, except when referring to historical or archival records in German.