Second Cultural Post

[Mary Chang]

Social hierarchy and age is very important in Korean culture. As weird as it may sound, many Koreans would ask each other "how old are you?" or "what year were you born" the first time they meet someone so they can figure out the hierarchy situation before forming an relationship as to who is older and deserves formal addresses. So obviously this culture is embedded in Korean language as well. In terms of language itself, the vocabulary, vocab endings and suffixes change depending on whom you are talking to. For example, to ask someone if they have eaten yet, there are two separate words used to address people of different ages. When asking someone a lot older than you, you would ask if they had "jin-ji"and when asking someone of your age or younger, you use the word "bab" even though they both mean meals. Also, you would use "yeon-sae" to ask someone's age if that person is older than you but use "na-yi" if that person is of your age or younger. Social hierarchy is very deeply reflected in Korean language, and therefore Koreans often find it difficult to address someone by calling their first names because that is considered impolite. One interesting fact I found while researching was that calling someone only by the family name which Koreans often do to be polite is actually considered impolite in Germany. Another linguistic aspect of Korean culture is that because it's a relatively more collectivistic culture than others, Koreans say "we" or "our" a lot more even when they are referring to personal property belonging just to themselves. Often times, you add "yo" at the end of each sentence to make it formal.