Re: Korean politeness levels ( wasRe: Tonal Languages taken toextremes)

On Thursday, September 27, 2001, at 03:54 PM, Nik Taylor wrote:

> Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>> Ah.  Gotcha.  Thanks for the clarification.  :-)  My teach-yourself book
>> does give "sayonara" as a conversation-ender but the context wasn't
>> clear.
>>    I'll have to remember that.
>
> I get the impression that it depends on the speaker, some people use
> "sayonara" lightly, while others only use it for a permanent good-bye.
>
Interesting--I'll just have to be careful, then.  (Which is useful in *any*
  language with more than one explicit politeness level...)

>> deferential: -(seu)mnida
>> polite: -eoyo/-ayo
>> blunt: -so/-o (infrequent)
>> familiar: -ne  (infrequent)
>> intimate: -eo/-a
>> plain: -ta/da
>
> Yikes!  *Six* levels?  Makes -masu in Japanese seem pretty pathetic.
> :-)
>
<wry g>  I haven't studied enough Japanese to go beyond -masu forms.  :-p
  But Japanese seems to have more pronominal forms at first glance.  OTOH
it may just be that I happened never to hear equivalents for things like
"ore" in Korean; my exposure has been woefully limited.

>> Since this list is probably about half my elders and half age-
>> mates/youngers, maybe I should just hedge my bets:
>
> Better to be too polite than not polite enough, right?  :-)
>
<emphatic nod>  Yeah, I had trouble convincing one of my friends in Ithaca
of this--my feeling is, *always* err in the more polite direction if
you're not sure.  It might amuse them but it'll almost never offend.  It
beats having an umbrella wielded at you by some cantankerous Korean (or
Japanese, or whatever) grandfather...<memories of incidents on Seoul
subways...>

YHL

Reply