The paper deals with the speech genre “wish” treated as emotional and volitive communicative event, its meaning is an expressed wish of implementation of something good or bad for somebody. Grammatically, this genre is a kind of mood named “optative”. It is a speech act describing a certain situation which implies an emotional reaction of a person. The reaction of an addressee for a good wish is usually expressed in words or gestures of gratitude. In case of a bad wish expressed directly it merges with a quarrel and a reverse bad wish.