1st person singular pronoun

[0stsee]

Very useful information from Desmond about the 1st person singular pronoun in Indonesian:

SAYA and AKU
-----------------
Saya can be used either in formal or informal situation. It's considered more polite than aku in general. You willl always make yourself sound natural and polite if you use saya whether you are in formal or informal situation.
Aku is used in a less formal situation. It's used among friends (besides GUE or GUA) and I see that it's more commonly spoken among teenagers.

In informal situation, it's also a personal preference to use saya or aku. I myself never use aku. I hate it.
I prefer gue or gua when talking to friends.

In accordance with what Desmond states about aku, the word seems to have been growing obsolete in the spoken language in Jakarta. It hasn't disappeared at all, but is being used less and less, with people, especially young people, preferring guè/gua in the spoken language.
As for saya, its situation is quite stable and is relatively the "safest" word to use as the 1st person singular pronoun (guè/gua and aku are used only in informal situations).



Note that saya can mean I, me, and my

E.g.

Nama saya Pauro
= My name is Pauro

Saya orang Polandia
= I'm Polish

Ini untuk saya?
= Is this for me?


The same goes for guè or gua.

[Yokhan JN]

Actually gua is the transliteration for I in Hokkien (Minnan) 我 , this term, among many other terms, was absorbed into daily (non-formal) Indonesian due to influence from Indonesian Chinese. gue is the Betawi (Jakarta) version of gua

Aku is the original term in Bahasa Indonesia for first person singular pronoun. For comparison, it is ako in Tagalog. Saya comes from sahaya as in hamba sahaya meaning slave. Last time people used hamba as first person singular pronoun to be modest / humble. In similar way, we use saya today as a more formal and polite variant of aku. Btw, aku has another meaning i.e. to confess (mengaku).

Also, kamu which is now singular you (thou), actually was plural (you), the singular being engkau, dikau, kau. This we still can read in the Bible translation (Alkitab versi "Terjemahan Baru" tahun 70an). Today, the plural you is kalian.

[vema123]

Just to give additional info:

'Ane' can also be used in singular pronoun for aku. 'Ane' is actually a language used in traditional Jakarta custom (Betawi). And 'ente' means you.


source:
online Indonesian

[0stsee]

Just to give additional info:

'Ané' can also be used in singular pronoun for aku. 'Ané' is actually a language used in traditional Jakarta custom (Betawi). And 'énté' means you.


source:
http://indonesianlanguage.net/online-indonesian

Yes.
Ané and énté seem to have Arabic roots.
They're becoming rather obsolete though, especially amongst the educated people.
Ané and énté are often used in comedies imitating Betawi people.

[0stsee]

Actually gua is the transliteration for I in Hokkien (Minnan) 我 , this term, among many other terms, was absorbed into daily (non-formal) Indonesian due to influence from Indonesian Chinese. gue is the Betawi (Jakarta) version of gua

Exactly.
In Bahasa Betawi, final -a is generally pronounced like an -é, so:
gua > gué
dia > dié

Aku is the original term in Bahasa Indonesia for first person singular pronoun. For comparison, it is ako in Tagalog. Saya comes from sahaya as in hamba sahaya meaning slave. Last time people used hamba as first person singular pronoun to be modest / humble. In similar way, we use saya today as a more formal and polite variant of aku. Btw, aku has another meaning i.e. to confess (mengaku).

Also, kamu which is now singular you (thou), actually was plural (you), the singular being engkau, dikau, kau. This we still can read in the Bible translation (Alkitab versi "Terjemahan Baru" tahun 70an). Today, the plural you is kalian.

In Bahasa Padang, they use ambo, from hamba sahaya.
I personally use hamba when I'm praying in Indonesian.