Wagahai – Total:
First person pronoun:
Singular: 吾輩, 我輩, 我が輩, わが輩, わがはい, ワガハイ; (Non-Wagahai: 我, わし, ワシ, 私)
Plural: 我輩たち, 我が輩たち, 我輩ら, 吾等, 我等, 我ら, 我々
The traditional form 我が輩 appears rarer than the two-kanji forms, and the phonetic kana-versions appear mostly in children’s media. The non-wagahai pronouns suggest mostly elderly or adult speakers, 我 being the archaic exception.
Second person:
お前, おまえ, オマエ, お前さん, お主, おぬし, うぬ, 君, きみ, キミ, そなた, 貴方, あなた, 貴様,
キサマ, きさま, 貴殿, 卿, 貴公, オタク, 己, おのれ
Plural forms: ~
Third person:
者, もの, モノ, 奴, やつ, ヤツ, こやつ, そやつ, こいつ, コイツ, そいつ, あいつ, アイツ,
彼, 彼女, 方, お方, お二方, 御仁, 皆, みんな, みな, 皆のモノ
Plural forms: ~
Honorifics:
(Various)
These also include the humble verbs (i.e. 申す・参る) which for some characters merely are part of their regular vocabulary, rather than showing any mode of deference towards the other characters.
Copula:
のじゃ, んじゃ, のだ, んだ, のである, んである, のです, んです, ございます
Thus mostly showing a selection of standard pattern, whereof のじゃ・のである are what are generically associated with the pronoun.
Emphatic particles:
のう, の, な, ね, よ, よね, ぞ, ぞい, わ, わい
(Including elongated versions thereof, which are here excluded. Combined forms are included here.)
History of Wagahai:
Wikipedia (Japanese):
古式
我輩、吾輩、我が輩、吾が輩（わがはい）
もったいぶった、尊大な表現。『吾輩は猫である』の題名および主人公の一人称として有名である。福田赳夫が使っていた。このほかデーモン閣下も使用している（聖飢魔IIの構成員も使用することがあった）。
フィクションにおいてもクッパやケロロなど地位のある男性キャラクターの一人称として多用される。
Old Styled (Pronouns)
Wagahai
Having the appearance of putting on airs and being dignified. Most famously known from the the title and usage of the main character of “Wagahai wa Neko de aru” (I, the cat). Fukuda Takeo (Japanese politician) used it. Furthermore, “His Excellence the Demon” has made use of it (the members of the group Seikimatsu II also use it). From fiction it is mostly used by male characters of a social standing, such as Koopa [Super Mario] and Keroro [Keroro Gunsou].
Further research has shown that minister Fukuda only used “wagahai” in his private writings, according to an article from the online publication Nikkan.1
Period of emergence:
The pronoun was originally a plural pronoun in Classical Chinese, presumably whence popular usage in Japanese arose. Its literal meaning is 我 (my) 輩 (cohorts, fellows).
It has the synonym 余輩 (yohai) with a similar meaning, though this has since become archaic, whereof only 我輩 is used albeit in fiction.
Its nature as a plural pronoun and then transferred usage as a singular one, albeit pompous was probably made popular by Souseki’s feline protagonist in Wagahai wa Neko de aru.
我輩 is therefore unique in its case of being a former plural pronoun that in modern Japanese is used almost exclusively as an archaic or pompous first person pronominal in fiction, versus that of 我等 and 我々 that are purely plural.
Usage:
It is in modern fiction only used comically rather than a serious pronoun, but there are few cases when the pronoun is still used in a genuinely formal or non-ironic sense, 程普, a character from 真三國無双８ uses this pronoun to get off an aura of professionalism and being an old war-hound. Rolento, a character from Capcom’s Street Fighter games, also uses this, similarly he is also a military man albeit mad.
Name
Exs.
Pos-neg
Honorific
Copula
Emph.
程普
我輩, 程徳謀, 老体, 老輩,
老いぼれ, 我輩ら, 我ら
おぬし, お前, あなた, 己,
おぬしら
者, 奴,
者たち
おる,
いる
良い, よろしい, いい,
ない, ぬ, ん, まい
致す,頂く,申す,
お頼み申す, 申上,
参じる, お収めする,
下さる,おわかり,
ご活躍, ご期待, 殿,
～殿
のだ,
のです,
なり
な,ぞ,わ
ロレント
吾輩, 我輩, 我, 吾等, 我々
貴様, キサマ, 貴様等,
貴様ら
者, もの, モノ,
～ども
おる
よい, いい, 良し, ない, ぬ, ん, まい
無
のだ,
である
な, ぞ, わ
As seen above Rolento is markedly more fiendish in his choice of second person pronominals, whereas Tei Fu at his most impolite uses an archaic informal pronoun, おぬし, rather than perhaps 貴様 or even お前, which other characters in the survey used.
Rolento’s use of 我輩 plus 貴様 gives him a sense of supreme arrogance, whereas Tei Fu merely is old fashioned if a bit dignified in his personality, i.e. Rolento is domineering and Tei Fu can be didactic if stuffy.
The comedic usages of the pronominal tend to show a sense of pomposity that typically of a quixotic nobleman or merely one if an unnaturally inflated ego. Hearkening back to the concept of the cat using a grandiose way of self-reference, a being that is merely a humble cat, but has disproportionate thoughts of self-grandeur.
Is it correspondent in semantics to the Western notion of the Majestic Plural? To a point, but no Japanese person, without a knowledge of etymology or Classical Chinese, knows of its original usage, if only for its literal meaning of “my cohorts.”
It ought to be noticed that the pronominal uses the traditional Japanese genitive of わが for 我, but reads 輩 as はい corresponding to its Sino-Japanese reading (“on-yomi”), where its semantic-reading (“kun-yomi”)is やから, here a formal word meaning “fellow” or “person.”
1https://www.nikkansan.com/column/post/1000001395