Confusing interchangeability of 汝 and 己


In most cases, 汝 is the formal/archaic second person pronoun, "you/thou", and
己 is a humble and archaic first-person pronoun or a way to refer to oneself.

However, confusingly, in many dictionaries, both the first-person pronoun and
second-person pronoun are listed as definitions of 汝 and 己, and some compounds
using these two kanji actually list them interchanged with each other as
variant forms.

> [汝等]{うぬら} Pronoun
>
>   1. ye; you. ​Archaism, Derogatory, usu. plural
>   2. me; I; us; we. ​Archaism, Only applies to わいら
>

>
> **Other forms 己等 【うぬら】、汝等 【わいら】、汝等 【なむだち】、汝等 【なむたち】**

> [己]{な} Pronoun
>
>   1. I​. Archaism
>   2. you.​
>

>
> **Other forms 汝 【な】**

Why have 汝 and 己 become associated with _both_ "I" and "you"? In Chinese, 己 is
associated solely with the self and 汝 is associated solely with "you".

In what cases would 汝 be used as "I" and 己 used as "you"? [汝]{うぬ} and
[汝等]{わいら} seem to be the only readings of 汝 that mean "I", while the standard
reading of [汝]{なんじ} only means "you/thou". However, the standard reading of
[己]{おのれ} can mean both "I/self" and "you". If it was in a text, how would you
be able to tell which it refers to?

