this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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While not my native language, in Japanese, many insulting things to call people are often translated as English curses, but actually are just increasingly disrespectful ways to refer to the listener. The actual translation for them is just "you" but not respectful. This might not be a complete list, but I got most of them at least.
Anata - Polite way of saying "you" but not often used in conversation except between spouses or lovers. It's preferred to use the listener's name instead.
Kimi - Rude in a polite setting, but not explicitly disrespectful, necessarily.
Omae - Now you're on the level of picking a fight, but good friends often use this for each other.
Temee - Extremely disrespectful
Kisama - Extremely disrespectful
Kono yarou - Extremely disrespectful
Is it Japanese i am think of that has an exclusionary โweโ form? Almost as in โWe(all of US but not YOU) were invited to the party.โ
That's correct, you can insult someone accidentally while complimenting them in a similar way. The particles ใฏ (as in wa) and ใ (ga) have different connotations that can simply different things.
So saying ใกใชใผใใใฎ้กใฏใใใ (Mary-san no kao wa kirei, "Mary has a beautiful face") causes an implication that Mary has a beautiful face, (... But nothing else about her is beautiful). Changing the ใฏ for ใ makes the statement come across as intended.
Without going into detail on the whole wa vs ga thing, wa is more like "as for x..." which can imply a "but..." at the end, whether stated or not, which causes this effect.
Inverted "butterface"?
Thanks for the breakdown!