Formality in the Korean language is purely hierarchal. From the bottom rung, you have banmal, which directly translates to ‘half-speech’. This consists of common informal speech used mostly by the younger generations and among people of the same age. Also, Koreans speak banmal if the two parties have a close relationship, such as those among parents, siblings, and children. However, speaking banmal can be seen as disrespectful unless an informal status has been mutually established between the two parties.
On the second level is jondaetmal, or 'formal speech'. This is the default type of speech Korean use when meeting a stranger or when addressing someone of a different age. Oftentimes, you hear titles like 'oppa' (older brother) and 'unni' (older sister) used to address older males and females and 'sunbae' (senior) and 'hoobae' (junior) to address certain classmates in school. Basically, the level of formality depends greatly on one’s age and, like many other cultures, greater seniority calls for greater respect. I see this as the safety net of formality.
We then upgrade from jondaetmal to super jondaetmal (I don’t think this is the actual term, but I think it captures the concept well). Koreans use super jondaetmal when addressing someone who evidently deserves high respect, someone with an established title, like the CEO of a company or business client. You may also hear super jondaetmal on radio talk shows and news broadcasts, where there is a public audience of varying ages and statuses. Commonly used super jondaetmal sentence endings include ‘-hamnida’ and seumnida.’
And then the greatest of them all, extreme jondaetmal (again, work with me here). This type of formal speech is reserved for people of greater power than the modern CEO, people like emperors and empresses. Now, South Korea is a democracy and no longer has a royal family in power, so you don’t really hear this type of speech in everyday life except maybe in historical dramas or plays. But, I think it’s still interesting to study the roots of a language so that you can see how the language evolved into what it is today.
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