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Japanese - Ask questions thread
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1174719097/l50

>>176
Kisama was a term of respect and had referred to "you" of a higher rank until the early modern period. Then, for several reasons, the word has lost the honorific meaning and acquired the opposite sense, and now it is used solely as an insult.

Similar changes in usages are found in many words. For example, Omae (お前) was a honorific personal pronoun of the second person in old Japanese. But in modern Japanese it is used when you are talking to your friends or want to be rude to others.