Old English also made new words with distinctive approaches to compounding.

Determinative compounding is common to all the Germanic languages and involves forming new words by connecting together two normally independent nouns or a noun and an adjective.

Examples of determinative compounding with two nouns include eahrring (earring) or bocstæf (bookstaff). Examples with an adjective and a noun include middangeard [j] (middle-yard "Earth”), federhoma (feather coat, "plumage” ['plumɪʤ] оперение, перья), and bonloan (bone locker, body).

Many of these words make up the unique poetic vocabulary of Old English literature, especially in metaphorical constructions known kennings. Kenning is a noun metaphor that expresses a farmiliar object in unfamiliar ways. The sea, for example, could be known as the hronrad, whaleroad.

Repetitive compounding brings together words that are nearly identical or that complement and reinforce each other for specific effect. Thus, holtwudu meant, essentially, wood-wood, in Old English, or forest; gangelwæfre meant the going-about weaver or the swift-moving one that is a spider.

Noun-adjective formations constitute another approach to сompounding, giving us græsgrene (grass green), lofgeorn (praise-eager or eager for praise), and goldhroden (gold-adorned украшенный). In Modem English, this form of compounding is revived in such phrases as king-emperor or fighter-bomber.

Prefix formations were the most common way of creating new words in Old English and other Germanic languages. Old English had many prefixes that derived from prepositions and altered the meanings of words in special ways. For example, the prefix "and-“ meant back or in response to. Thus, one could swear in Old English or andswar, meaning to answer. The prefix "with-" meant against. One could stand or withstand something in Old English, meaning to stand against.

Old English poets and scholars used the resources of their language, in particular its ability to make nouns through compounds and prefixes, to create an elaborate metaphorical and literary language. Old English seems to have a tendency to develop large classes of nouns—groups of synonyms for clarifying concepts through repetition and restatement rather than (as we do now) through progressively more distinctive adjectives or adverbs. Old English literary diction is primarily nominal - that is, it depends on forms of repetition and restatement, using synonyms to bring together various connotations of a thing or an idea to enrich its resonance. Thus, when we read an Old English poem, we find the metaphorical or imaginative aspects of it in the nouns and repetitions, rather than the modifiers (adjectives and adverbs).

The earliest English реют and the first example we have of the nature of Old English poetic vocabulary is Caedmon's Hymn composed between 657 and 680. Bede tells us the story of Caedmon, a cowherd living in Northumbria, in his Ecclesiastical History.

Professor Seth Lerer is Professor in Humanities and Professor of English and Comparative Literature At Stanford University.

Nu sculon herigcan heofonrices Weard,

Meotodes meahte ond his modgeþanc,

weorc Wuldorfæder swa he wundra gehwæs

ece Drihten, or onstealde.

He ærest sceop eorðan bearnum

heofen to hrofe halig Scyppend;

þa middangeard moncynnes Weard,

ece Drihten, ærfter teode,

firum foldan, Frea ælmihtig.

Now we shall praise heaven-kingdom's Guardian,

the Creator's might, and his mind-thought,

the works of the Glory-father: how he, each of us

wonders,

the eternal Lord, established at the beginning.

He first shaped for earth's children

heaven as a roof, the holy Creator.

Then a middle-yard, mankind's Guardian,

the eternal Lord, established afterwards,

the earth for the people, the Lord almighty.

Praise we the Lord

Of the heavenly kingdom,

God’s power and wisdom,

The works of his hand;

As the Father of glory,

Eternal Lord,

Wrought the beginning

Of all his wonders!

Holy Creator!

Warden of men!

First, for a roof,

For the children of earth

He established the heavens,

And founded the world,

And spread the dry land

For the living to dwell in.

Lord Everlasting!

Almighty God!