The Speech, the defining attribute of a Bard and the central mystery of the Knowing, is a topic which exercised many Bardic thinkers over many centuries. 13 Much therefore might be written about it, of which can be given only the barest sketch here. 

The Speech behaved like a language, with certain crucial differences, and could in fact be learned; it was, for example, spoken by the Dhyllin people as their first tongue. But in the mouths of those who learned it, rather than in those with the Gift, it had no Bardic virtue.

Bards used it when speaking of matters of gravity and importance, because it was considered impossible to lie in the Speech. This was, in fact, not strictly accurate: Hulls used the Speech and were able to lie, although this usage was not considered to be the Speech proper, and was sometimes called Dark or Black Speech. There was also the question of those who attained the Speech but were never taught the Knowings of the Light and, more crucially, never came into their Bardic or Secret Name (also known as their Truename). This was a circumstance which usually had tragic consequences, since such people were unable to properly understand or channel their powers, and were never able to enter their full Gift. This, generally, was rare, if more common as the Schools fell into disrepute after the demise of the Monarchs of Annar. There were also the cases of those who had only a slight Gift. Such people might have been village witches (hence the expression "witchspeak"), and they generally spoke a truncated and bastard version of the Speech, no more than a few words of potency, although sometimes they could attain considerable, if limited, power; but they were not considered to be Bards, since they did not attain the whole of the Speech, nor did they know their Names. Consequently, they were sometimes referred to as the Unnamed, which is to be distinguished from the Nameless, who had rejected his Name.

This clearly makes possession of the Speech less straightforward than it might at first appear. The fact that the Speech could be learned by those without the Gift suggests that the virtue of the Speech did not inhere in the words themselves, as was argued by many Bards in the Middle Years, but expressed the mysteries of the cosmos itself within its syntactic relationships and the vibrations of its utterance, from which were drawn its unique powers. 14 The chief reason given for the potency inhering in the words themselves was in the priority and importance given to Names in the Speech, and to Bardic Names. The truth quite possibly resides in an amalgamation of both arguments, as was pointed out by other Bards. 

Bards were the only people who bore secret Names, and a Bard's Name was and remains a central mystery which can only be partially discerned and puzzled over. The only complete written record of an Instatement and Naming ceremony occurs in The Riddle of the Treesong, 15 which confirms rather than negates the ritual's crucial importance. Other writings indicate that the most important mysteries were not written down but kept in the "rings of living memory", and in the Treesong text the authors felt compelled to defend their choice to record it, remarking that since entire forests of knowledge had been hewn down by the Dark, "it is necessary to preserve, even in such a crude way, such Secrets as are known to us, in case all living Knowings vanish from the earth". 16

It appears that a Bard's Name was much more than a mere appellation or signifier of status or origin: it was a Bard's being, and its achievement was a sign of a Bard's maturation into full power. One who knew a Bard's secret or true Name had power over him or her, and thus Names were guarded closely and given only to intimates as a sign of ultimate trust. Rejecting one's Name was unheard of until Sharma's Spell of Binding, and was regarded as the ultimate blasphemy. Sharma of Dén Raven however remained the only Bard to successfully do so. Hulls did not use their Names, but were unable to reject them completely, and those who possessed the Names of Hulls could still destroy them.

Because the Speech was not learnt in the normal way, and so was not subject to the same forces of change or cultural variety, it remained more constant than other human languages. Bards from vastly differing regions had no difficulty understanding each other if they used the Speech, despite the gulfs in tradition and culture which separated them. Nevertheless, the fact remains that there were variations in the Speech; that although it sprouted, as it were, always from the same stem, different environments encouraged its growth in differing ways. There was, for example, a noticeable, if slight, difference between the Speech of Afinil and the Speech of Maerad's day, and to Maerad's ear Saliman's Speech, being from far South of her region, would have had the equivalent of an accent. 

Those with the Gift used the Speech for all the Arts of the Knowings: the use of the Speech was central to healing, to song (which was held high as an art of wisdom), and to all spells, as well as to investigations (such as astronomy or natural science) we would be accustomed to thinking of as scientific. The Bards made no distinctions, as we do, between arts and sciences, considering them parts of a single Knowing. The Speech also enabled those with the Gift to converse with animals and, less frequently, plants. The Speech did not need to be physically spoken to be potent; Bards could use it effectively merely as a mode of thought. This raises the most important and difficult difference between the Speech and other languages, which are the subtleties of its registrations as a mode of mental communication. These, crucial as they are, cannot be explained, and here must be glanced over by reference to the Bardic paradox that the "centre of the Speech is Silence". It is also why, despite the fact that Bards had a very sophisticated written culture, orality, and the mnemonic arts which go with it, still held precedence.