>>OK: if "what" is not adequate, then --- is it? Give me a word. "What is it" doesn't work, because I'll answer "it's a language issue". If this question is not clear, then --- is it? "What is it" doesn't work, because I'll answer "it's a question".
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>I think you're losing me now. I have no idea any more what you are trying to figure out. If you want to know what the door is made of, then you ask, "What is the door made of?" Why do you seem to need some other (probably more convoluted) way of asking the same question? What is inadequate or unacceptable about "What is the door made of?" It's certainly not a very obscure construct, or obfuscation of what you want to know, so what's wrong with it?

OK, let's try another angle. You're first on the beach, so you're out of the water when the others are just coming. They will ask you "kakva je voda" - "..... is the water" - and you will answer "cold", "warm", "wet", "hard" etc. Replace the dots.

>If you want to know the name of the building, or park or whatever you are in, the ask that. Why so desperate to find a convoluted way of asking a simple question?

English is convoluted. Kakav language... can't ask for kakav is a thing, you have to be specific on which property exactly you mean - temperature, composition, color, texture or what... there's a word missing to make it simple.

As you see, it depends on the POV :). Reminds me of frameworks, you know - every framework has great tools to do what it's made for, but falls short when you try to do something else. Imagine having sixty different screwdrivers and wrenches, but no hammers. You'd be perfectly equipped to tighten anything up... except with nails.

>Besides, you don't really want to know the properties. You want to know one specific property, so ask about it. In Serbian is there a way to ask the question so that you get back all the properties in which you happen to be interested? The language lets the other person know just exactly which ones, of all the properties of the 'place' are the ones that you want to know about without your actually specifying them?

You may get what you didn't ask for if you happen on a wisecrack, but it's generally the property of interest to both sides - in case of a swimmer and the newcomer, temperature of the water; in the case of driver asking about the road ("kakav je drum?") it's how's the road for driving - bumpy, slippery, smooth, rough, curvy...; in case of the weather ("kakvo je vreme?") it's "sunny", "rainy", "cold", "freezing".

And it's not anything Serbian specific. I think the word exists in several other languages (apart from the whole Slavic family, I think it exists in Romance languages, there's a proper phrase in German). Also, the phrase "kakav otac, takav sin" (literally, .... father, such son) is equivalent to "like father, like son".