This paper investigates word formation methods of linguistic terms in the literary language of Xibe, as the first of a series of studies to be done on the lexical structures of the language. In view of the results obtained so far from analyzing over 170 linguistic terms of the language (that are now being used in accordance with the principles for forming and using modern Xibe noun terms established in 1988), the word formation methods of the language can be classified roughly as follows: 1. Conversion: e.g. anggai gisun ‘spoken language’←angga ‘mouth’＋gisun ‘language’ 2. Derivation: e.g. gisutun ‘word’←gisun ‘language’＋-tun ‘noun-formation suffix’ 3. Compounding: e.g. ?uturu ‘grammar’←?u ‘sentence’＋turu ‘mysteries’ 4. Blending: e.g. gisumdan ‘language sound’←gisun ‘language’＋mudan ‘sound’ These methods are not different from the common word formation methods generally found in many languages, and thus there is nothing new about Xibe word formation methods. However, since the Xibe language has had very few modern technical terms in it, this paper provides a good opportunity to look into how new technical terms are made in a language which has very few or none of them.