In latin there are also words formed by the union of other words, and it was quite common. The trick is, in latin the verb was positioned at the end of the sentence. So the compound words were something like
calefacio, that comes from
calens (caliente, hot) and
facere, hacer, to do), so
calefacio is just a "hot maker". Notice that the verb part of the word is at the end of it.
Other examples that don't include verbs are
respublica, that comes from
res (cosa, thing) and
publica (pública, public), and
aquaeductus, that comes from
aquae (agua, water) and
ductus (conducción, maybe pipe?).
So, maybe we will have to track the origin of the compound words before the latin language. Maybe they are even older than the written expression.