

The first item "Sprach", is called the "determiner", or "determinative element" ( das Bestimmungswort).

It also establishes the gender and the plural form of the compound noun. The second element, "Schule", is called the "primary word" ( das Grundwort), and it designates the larger set (in this case, schools) The basic German compound word, like its English relation, consists of two vocabulary items, although longer chains are possible. ( the Danube Steamship Navigation Company Captain). The Awful German Language to these "curiosities,"Īnd many people are familiar with ones like "der Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän" The German penchant for creating complex compound nouns has long been the stuff of comedy. The resulting noun chains in English typically feature spaces or hyphens between the different elements, while

Like English, German also offers the possibility of combining of words, especially nouns. Nouns from verbs with separable or inseparable prefixes, or Inseparable prefixes, and various ways of deriving German can create new words with a variety of tools, including suffixes,
