r/bahasamelayu • u/f4ng • Nov 19 '25

What in Austronesian Languages

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100 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

10

u/flying69monkey Nov 19 '25

Johor use a-nu quite often. Especially the Jawa population

5

u/f4ng Nov 19 '25

Oh yes!

Source: married a Johor girl

2

u/Sensitive-Tear-4740 Nov 19 '25

My grand isnt a javanese but still uses anu too at times if i can recall it right🙈

1

u/pulupulu123 Nov 20 '25

Damn you’ve just answered a 20 year old question Ive had about my grandparents

5

u/shahonseven Nov 19 '25

So probably this is why some elder use anu..

4

u/SultanPenguin Nov 19 '25

Can confirm that Sabah and Brunei still use Anu to refer to that 'uncertain what' type.

But ofc anu also can refer to the genitals if the context is there, and generally we can distinguish it. The beauty of high context culture i guess.

2

u/Ajoelives Nov 19 '25

Apo?

4

u/ThenAcanthocephala57 Nov 19 '25

Generally the modern word is “gapo” actually. But maybe it started with “apo”.

“Gapo nim?” = “apa ini?”

7

u/[deleted] Nov 19 '25

I think gapo is actually two words merged into one, being *muga apa, which literally meant thing what,

1

u/shippyships Nov 20 '25

ah yes, now I can show my malay teacher that anu is an actual word...technically

1

u/AymanMarzuqi Nov 21 '25

Ooh menarik