Korean honorifics
The Korean language has a system of honorifics that recognizes and reflects the hierarchical social status of participants with respect to the subject and/or the object and/or the audience. Speakers use honorifics to indicate their social relationship with the addressee and/or subject of the conversation, concerning their age, social status, gender, degree of intimacy, and speech act situation.
One basic rule of Korean honorifics is ‘making oneself lower’; the speaker can use honorific forms and also use humble forms to make themselves lower.
The honorific system is reflected in honorific particles, verbs with special honorific forms or honorific markers and special honorific forms of nouns that includes terms of address.
Honorific particles in an honorific sentence
The Korean language can index deference or respect toward a sentence referent in subject or dative position through the application of lexical choices such as honorific particles.| Base noun | Plain Particles | Honorific Particles | |
| Subject particle | After vowel | After consonant | 께서 |
| Subject particle | 께서 | ||
| Dative particle | Inanimate | Animate | 께 ' |
| Dative particle | - | 께 ' |
There is no honorific expression for inanimate '에'. The honorific version of '에게' is '께'.
For example, while - ‘teacher’ is neutral and -선생님이- denotes the role of the noun as the subject of the sentence, -선생님께서- still means ‘teacher’, but it indicates that the sentence in which it occurs is an honorific sentence and the speaker is treating the subject, - '', courteously.
Honorific pronouns and nouns
In the Korean language, the honorific form of first person pronouns are humble forms, which speakers use to refer to themselves with humble pronouns and humble verb forms to make him/herself lower.| Plain Form | Humble Form | English Translation | |
| First Person Pronouns | ' | I | |
| First Person Pronouns | We |
Korean second person pronouns do not appear in honorific conversation and professional titles and kinship terms are used. The most common terms of address are kinship terms, which are divided into plain and honorific levels.
The honorific suffix is affixed to many kinship terms to make them honorific. Thus, someone may address his own grandmother as but refer to someone else's grandmother as .
| Base noun | Honorific | English Translation |
| grandfather | ||
| grandmother | ||
| father | ||
| mother | ||
| a male's older brother | ||
| a male's older sister | ||
| a female's older brother | ||
| a female's older sister | ||
| son | ||
| daughter |
Unlike the Japanese language, which allows a title to be used alone for addressing people when an honorific expression is required ‘president’, 教授, Korean does not allow lone titles for addressing people. It is impolite to address someone as 사장 ‘president,’ 교수 '' ‘professor,’ etc. without a suffix. In Korean, those job titles would be followed by the honorific suffix except when addressing social equals or those lower in status.
Addressee honorification
'상대 높임법 ' refers to the way the speaker uses honorifics towards the listener. '상대 높임법 ' is the most developed honorification in Korean Language which is mainly realized by the closing expression, which is then largely divided into formal and informal forms, and categorised into 6 stages according to the degree of honorific.Formal forms include:
- the '하십시오 체 ' which is extremely polite form,
- the '하오 체 ' which is moderately addressee-raising,
- the 하게 체 ' which is moderately addressee-lowering
- and the '해라 체 ' which is extremely low form.
For example, you can write the following sentence differently by using different closing expressions.
"Read this book."
"이 책을 읽으십시오. " : It uses '하십시오 체 '.
"이 책을 읽으시오. " : It uses '하오 체 '.
"이 책을 읽게. " : It uses '하게 체 '.
"이 책을 읽어라. " : It uses '해라 체 '.
"이 책을 읽어요. " : It uses '해요 체 '.
"이 책을 읽어. " : It uses '해 체 '.
Honorific verbs
When the subject of the conversation is older or has higher seniority than the speaker, the Korean honorific system primarily index the subject by adding the honorific infix or into the stem verb.Thus, becomes . A few verbs have suppletive honorific forms:
| Base verb/adjective | Regular honorific | English translation |
| "to go" | ||
| "to receive" | ||
| " small" | ||
| Base verb/adjective | Suppletive honorific | English translation |
| "to be" | ||
| "to drink" | ||
| "to eat" | ||
| "to eat" | ||
| "to sleep" | ||
| "to be hungry" |
A few verbs have suppletive humble forms, used when the speaker is referring to him/herself in polite situations. These include and for . 드리다 is substituted for 주다 when the latter is used as an auxiliary verb, while 올리다 is used for 주다 in the sense of "offer".
Honorific forms of address
have their own set of polite equivalents is the humble form of and is the humble form of ). However, Korean language allows for coherent syntax without pronouns, effectively making Korean a so-called pro-drop language, thus Koreans usually avoid using the second-person singular pronoun, especially when using honorific forms. Third-person pronouns are occasionally avoided as well, mainly to maintain a sense of politeness. Although honorific form of is , that term is used only as a form of address in a few specific social contexts, such as between people who are married to each other, or in an ironic sense between strangers. Other words are usually substituted where possible.Spacing spelling convention
The National Institute of Korean Language classifies nim/ssi/gun/yang as dependent nouns that follow a proper noun, and they prescribe that a space should appear between a noun and its dependent noun. This is not to be confused with the affix -nim used with common nouns, since affixes are written without spaces.''-A'' / -''ya''
Korean has the vocative case markers which grammatically identify a person being addressed so that they eliminate possible grammatical ambiguities. -a or -ya is a casual title used at the end of names. It is not gender exclusive. If a name ends in a consonant -a is used, while -ya is used if the name ends in a vowel. -a / -ya is used only between close friends and people who are familiar with each other, and its use between strangers or distant acquaintances would be considered extremely rude. -ya / -a is only used hierarchically horizontally or downwards: an adult or parent may use it for young children, and those with equal social standing may use it with each other, but a young individual will not use -a or -ya towards one who is older than oneself or holds a higher status than oneself.Middle Korean had three classes of the vocative case but practically only -아 / -야 is remaining in everyday life. -여 / -이여 is only used in literature and archaic expressions, and -하 has completely disappeared. See Korean vocative case for more information.
''Ssi''
Ssi is the most commonly used honorific used amongst people of approximately equal speech level. It is attached after the full name, such as 'Lee Dawon-ssi''Nim, -nim''
Nim is the highest form of honorifics and above ssi. nim will follow addressees' names on letters/emails and postal packages. -nim is used as a commonplace honorific for guests, customers, clients, and unfamiliar individuals. -nim is also used towards someone who is revered and admired for having a significant amount of skill, intellect, knowledge, etc. and is used for people who are of a higher rank than oneself. Examples include family members, teachers, clergy, and gods.''Seonbae/hubae''
Seonbae is used to address senior colleagues or mentor figures relating to oneself. As with English titles such as Doctor, Seonbae can be used either by itself or as a title. Hubae is used to refer to juniors. Usually, people in senior and junior relationships call each other '선배님 ' ' at the first meeting.''Gun/yang''
Gun is used moderately in formal occasions, for young, unmarried males. gun is also used to address young boys by an adult. yang is the female equivalent of gun and is used to address young girls. Both are used in a similar fashion to ssi, following either the whole name or the first name in solitude.For example, if the boy's name is '김인성 ', it is used as '김인성 군 인성 군 '. And if the girl's name is '이루다 ', she can be called as '이루다 양 ' or '루다 양 '.
-''jjang''
-jjang is the Korean version of the Japanese honorific suffix "-chan ". However, it is not standard in the Korean language and is not in the dictionary. It is not often used in daily life and is never used in official appearances.Less common forms of address
- Gwiha can be seen commonly in formal letters, often used by a company to a client.
- Gakha is used only in extremely formal occasions, usually when addressing presidents, high officials, or bishops and archbishops. Somewhat avoided nowadays due to its connotations to Imperial Japan.
- Hapha was used to address the father of the king who was not a king, or the oldest son of the crown prince.
- Jeoha was only used when addressing the crown prince.
- Jeonha was only used when addressing kings, now mostly used to address cardinals.
- Pyeha was used only when addressing emperors.
- Seongha is used when addressing popes, patriarchates or the Dalai Lama; the equivalent of the English word "His Holiness" or "His Beatitude".
- Nari or alternatively, naeuri, was used by commoners in the Joseon Dynasty to refer to people of higher status but below daegam, English equivalent of "His Excellency". The honorific is of native Korean origin.
Relative honorifics
'압존법 ' is usually used in the home or relationship between teacher and student. For example, "할아버지, 아버지가 아직 안 왔습니다. " means "Grandfather, father hasn't come yet." Both grandfather and father are in higher position than the speaker, but grandfather is much higher than father. In this special case, Korean do not use honorific expression on father to admire grandfather.
Therefore, in this sentence, "아버지가 " is used rather than "아버지께서 " and "왔습니다" rather than "오셨습니다 ".
For example, one must change the post positional particle and verb if the person you are speaking to is a higher position than the person you are referring to. "부장님, 이 과장님께서는 지금 자리에 안 계십니다 " This means, "General Manager, Manager Lee is not at his desk now", with the bolded parts elevating the manager higher than the general manager, even though they both are in a higher position than you. The general manager would be offended by the fact that you elevated the manager above him.
However, '압존법' in the workplace is far from Korean traditional language etiquette. In front of the superior, lowering another superior who is in a lower position may apply in private relationships, such as between family members and between teacher and student.
But it is awkward to use it at the workplace.
Therefore, the above sentence can be modified according to workplace etiquette as follows.
"부장님, 이 과장님은 지금 자리에 안 계십니다. "