It’s an old form of you in Japanese if my memory serves, like thou in English.
It’s not vulgar, it’s archaic.
Just a fun fact. If you’ve played any of the persona games (at least 5, I assume its the same in 4 and 3) in japanese you’ll have heard the phrase 「我は汝、汝は我」translated to english as “I am thou, thou art I”. In those contexts it doesn’t come of as vulgar, just very old fashioned, like the other commenter said.
I’m not familiar with its supposed vulgar uses, but it’s actually fairly common in Japanese translations of hymns, such as in “Nearer, My God, To Thee” -> 「神よ，汝れに近寄らん」
It’s one of archaic words meaning ‘you’ or ‘thou’. In modern fictional stories entities such as resurrected omnipotent superbeings, kings and queens of mythical fantasy kingdoms, unknown ancient supernatural spirits etc. will probably use the word when they want to address to you.
there are hundreds of ways to say “you” and “i”
when looking up words in a dictionary, check whether it’s marked archaic. also check sentence example usages. something like this is going to have nearly no example sentences other than some that are clearly extremely old references. that’s your cue to not use the word
be careful trying to memorize every word you run into, 80% of a dictionary is for out of use words or rare words, they’re in there so that you can find them when you need to, but not because they’re supposed to be used today
It’s literally the Biblical thou in translation.
If you see it in manga or video games, nine times out of ten it’s going to be coming from the mouth of an angel or similar divine entity.
Also, omae isn’t vulgar; it’s just casual and familiar (to equals) or talking down (to students / subordinates).
You want vulgar? Go with kisama, which is effectively you (bastard).
What is the reading for that? I don’t recognize it
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It’s an old form of you in Japanese if my memory serves, like thou in English.
It’s not vulgar, it’s archaic.
Just a fun fact. If you’ve played any of the persona games (at least 5, I assume its the same in 4 and 3) in japanese you’ll have heard the phrase 「我は汝、汝は我」translated to english as “I am thou, thou art I”. In those contexts it doesn’t come of as vulgar, just very old fashioned, like the other commenter said.
I’m not familiar with its supposed vulgar uses, but it’s actually fairly common in Japanese translations of hymns, such as in “Nearer, My God, To Thee” -> 「神よ，汝れに近寄らん」
It’s one of archaic words meaning ‘you’ or ‘thou’. In modern fictional stories entities such as resurrected omnipotent superbeings, kings and queens of mythical fantasy kingdoms, unknown ancient supernatural spirits etc. will probably use the word when they want to address to you.
there are hundreds of ways to say “you” and “i”
when looking up words in a dictionary, check whether it’s marked archaic. also check sentence example usages. something like this is going to have nearly no example sentences other than some that are clearly extremely old references. that’s your cue to not use the word
be careful trying to memorize every word you run into, 80% of a dictionary is for out of use words or rare words, they’re in there so that you can find them when you need to, but not because they’re supposed to be used today
It’s literally the Biblical thou in translation.
If you see it in manga or video games, nine times out of ten it’s going to be coming from the mouth of an angel or similar divine entity.
Also, omae isn’t vulgar; it’s just casual and familiar (to equals) or talking down (to students / subordinates).
You want vulgar? Go with kisama, which is effectively you (bastard).
What is the reading for that? I don’t recognize it