[usrnm]

> At least English lacks compound words or whatever German calls those 30-character constructions.

Not entirely true. English, as any other Germanic language, still likes to compound words to produce a new meaning, the main difference is that, as opposed to most other Germanic languages, spaces are usually retained in writing. But this is just a spelling difference, the underlying process is the same.

See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_(linguistics)

[1718627440]

Does that mean, that "compound word" counts as a single word? And how do I distinguish between "a" "compound" "word" and "a" "compound word"?

[usrnm]

Depends on your definition of a word and how it relates to writing. It's not such a simple question, actually.

Let's consider "scheepskapitein", "Schiffskapitän" and "ship captain". All three are formed the exact same way and mean roughly the same thing, but it's customary in Dutch and German to spell it without a space and in English it's considered correct to have a space in between. Note, that there are no spaces in speech, it's simply a writing convention. So, how many words are there in this example?

[1718627440]

I don't know, I think German laymen have a unambiguous understanding. "der Schiffskapitän" = 2, "des Schiffes Kapitän" = 3

Sure, linguists can dissect everything and should, but how does the English laymen perceive it?