Very little has been written about the personal meaning that speech melody had for Janáček, who recorded speech contours in musical notation in an attempt to pursue what Milan Kundera has called the “search for the vanished present.” In notating his dying daughter Olga’s final utterances, Janáček hoped to preserve her presence, to take solace in the notion that, in some way, she still lived with him. This article contextualizes and reexamines the issue of speech melody within the larger arena of language as music, presents Olga’s speech melodies, and discusses their personal significance for Janáček.