'Who is fixing the light?', in Fang is Nzá aha kom bilám?, the word Nzá means 'Who?', Aha means 'is', Kom is the conjugated form of the ver 'To fix', Bilám is 'Light/Electricity'.

To answer a question like Nzá aha kom bilám?, 'Who is fixing the electricity?', we reply with the article É, this is the most correct way, É mot wá yém, which means 'The person you know', É mot mean 'The person', Wá yém means 'You know'. Or for the Nzá question you could just answer by saying the person's name.

In the previous example the word 'Nzá' is the fist in the sentence, however, for some sentences that is not the case, for instance, when we say 'Who are you', in Fang is O nhe nzá?, the part O nhe means 'You are', Nzá means 'Who?'.

The question O nhe nzá?, which means 'Who are you?', is asked with the verb TO BE, so we have to answer with the same verb TO BE. In this case we we answer Mhe nhe ..., which means 'I am ...'

The question word 'What?' in Fang is Dje.

To say 'What?' is Dje in Fang, but in Fang this word works very different from many languages if not all. In most languages you can say 'what' isolated or combine it with other words like 'What are you doing?'. In Fang when you are asking just 'What?', we just say Dje?. However, if you start with Dje, you can not add anything else after that, this word can never be at the beginning of any sentence but it can be part in any other position of the sentence. It is used before you know what someone is talking about, if someone asked you 'I will tell you something', you can reply with 'What?' = Dje?.

The most common way to say 'What' in Fang is Djíáng. The difference with Dje, is that Djíáng is asked after you know or have an idea of what the other person is talking about. If someone told you 'I heard that you drink rice and eat water', you can reply with 'What?' but in this case is Djíáng?.

If you want to ask a question 'What?', you have to use the word Djí at the beginning of the question.

To say 'What is that thing?' in Fang is Djí nhe djóm té?, where Djí means 'What?', Nhe means 'is', Djóm is 'Thing', and Té means 'That'.

To answer a Djí type of question like Djí nhe djóm té?, which means 'What is that thing?', we have to reply with the same verb being asked with. So we can say É nhe é djóm ba lué nhe nvas, which means, 'It is a thing they call a comb', É nhe means 'It is', É djóm means 'The thing', Ba lué nhe means 'They call as', Nvas means 'Comb'.

A very common way most people answer the Djí type of question like Djí nhe djóm té?, which means 'What is that thing?', is by answering as if the thing was a person and they give it a person pronoun. Most Fang people would answer with a sentence like A nhe é djóm ba lué nhe nvas, which means the same as before 'It is a thing they call comb', the difference is that now we answered with A nhe which in reality means 'He/she is'.

In Fang, there are 2 very typical sentences people use when asking 'who?' and 'what?' and the way they are structured is very different from the rules we have been explaining previously, they are very popular shortcuts for the sentences: 'Who is this?' and 'What is this?'.

The popular shortcut to say 'Who is this? in Fang is Ndjá ñí?.

The popular shortcut to say 'What is this? in Fang is Djí dí?.

The words "Who" and "What" help gather important information during conversations.