In the Malay society, the use of pronouns aku (I) and kau (kau) when addressing
unfamiliar people is considered impolite. This was also observed when addressing
someone older or superiors (for e.g., student addressing teacher). Men, as shown earlier
in the pronoun distribution chart (Table 2) have free access to both Malay first and second
person pronouns; however, we observe that these pronouns, aku and kau, do not occur
freely. They were used only when speaking to other men of about the same age or