The article deals with the distinctive features of sacral speech. This is the type of speech communication, opposed to the profane one and used in situations of interaction with supernatural beings or within other ways of interaction with the sphere of sacred. Cross-cultural analysis based on the materials from a number of geographically and chronologically distant cultures demonstrates the presence of the universal features of sacred speech at all the levels of language organization. These features include the intense use of rhyme and rhythm, which associates sacred speech with poetry, as well as parallelism, a formulaic character, the use of obscure, archaic or semantically meaningless vocabulary, and scarce use of shifters and indications of communication participants compared to everyday speech. Sacred texts are often reproduced in a language form distinct from ordinary one. This may be a foreign language, an archaic form of the language of everyday communication, a special ritual language or the language of the priestly class. In some cases, the use of fictional languages and various forms of ecstatic speech behavior (glossolalia, xenoglossia) accompany communication with supernatural forces. The main function of these language features is to separate sacral speech from profane one, used in everyday life. A speech marked with these features is perceived as effective, prophetic, and able to change the world. It also could be perceived even as endowed with a personal beginning, animated. This is a reflection of archaic imaginary about the close connection between language, speech, on the one hand, and the world around it, on the other.