I am an avid fan (a fan fini as my brother the linguist would say) of the Créole language. Every day, I pounce on its bracing accents, its images, on the fullness of the end of its sentences.

To listen to a Haitian speaking Créole is exactly the opposite of watching a silent movie. Rather than imagining words on the lips of the different characters, you imagine faces that go with each intonation, with each simplified conjugation of a verb, with each proverb. And, of proverbs, Haitians never have enough. One life wouldn’t be enough (nor would 16, my friend Max, the voodoo priest tells me) to learn all the proverbs that circulate in this country.

Okay. This brief moment of lexical pleasure did have a specific goal, dare I remember it. I was talking to you about an expression I recently discovered; it’s my duty to record it today, simply because it is an expression that makes us more human, because it has the silent ability to help us see beyond ourselves.

Fè rèspè.

Two words that make me happy. Two words to say what French would take a paragraph to express.

Fè rèspè.

The exact translation in French is Fais le respect. (Have respect.)

But Fais le respect is a bit weak, a bit feeble in my language, the language of Molière. A litte empty too.

Fè rèspè.

Obviously, one might say this to someone else who is not showing respect. See—I love knowing that you understood that before I explained it. You are already speaking a bit more Creole. Bravo!

Fè rèspè.

But it means something much bigger than just “respect me”—even if that’s what the expression almost always signifies. “Respect me,” or even “be respectful,” is direct, personal, private. We would say this to someone who is disrespectful to us, certainly, but we really only say it about ourselves. Respect me is the point—not others, not “practice respect in general in your life.” Respect is something one person shows another person. Fine, that’s appropriate and probably expected everywhere. But it’s not the same as

Fè rèspè.

Because, in this case, in the Créole language, and in Haitian life in general, respect is much bigger than the self. Have respect. Not only for me, not only for this particular minute, but throughout life, in every action that you take toward another. Fè rèspè: the emphasis is completely on the word “respect.” Not on the “me,” but on the action itself, which is to respect the other person, no matter who the other is.

It’s that broad! Have respect. In your life, practice respect, share respect. And in return you will receive respect. The best translation I can think of is this one: In your life every day, practice and share respect not only with and to one individual, but with and to everyone in society.

You see, that took many more words to explain using the language of my ancestors, than the Créole Fè rèspè.

It’s beautiful, this message that is about more than the self, about the other whom one does not know. Respect.

It’s very simple.

Now you speak a little more Creole, and you are discovering more of the gentle breeze from the south in the language of my friends.

Fè respè