Can cats
talk? Many cat owners would like to think so and
some even claim that their cats speak a number of recognizable
words. A Brazilian cat takes claims one step
further by apparently being able to sing a number
of well known songs while the Fortean Times
carried a report of a cat which speaks several
words in Turkish and suggested, with tongue firmly
in cheek, that the reason many owners cannot
understand their cats is because the cats are
speaking Turkish. But before cat-owners rush out
for phrase books, are these cats really speaking
or are their owners just talking turkey?
For humans, the terms 'speech' and 'talk' are
not restricted to vocalization, but encompass
human body language (which most of us read without
realizing it), gestural languages (sign language)
and tactile languages (of deaf-blind individuals)
which are equally expressive among those fluent in
their use. Further, human language comprises both
verbal and non-verbal components (including the
written extension of body language through
gestural substitutes such as the <VBG >, :-)
symbols within Internet communication).
The cat's vocal apparatus differs from our own
and is not designed with speech in mind. However
cats need to communicate, both with other cats and
with owners. They "speak" to each other
through body language, communicating feelings and
intentions through posture and facial expression.
Scent is also an important component of cat
communication. In addition, they have a vocabulary
of sounds ranging from caterwauls to mewing
sounds, from hisses to the "silent meow"
which is probably a sound pitched too high for
human ears to hear. The familiar "miaow"
is used mainly for communicating with humans as we
are evidently too thick to understand anything
other than kitten-talk.
The remainder of this article will be concerned
with vocalizations - the vocalizations used in
cat/cat communication and the vocalizations used
in cat/human communication.
Do Cats
Have Language?
In "Alice Through the Looking Glass",
Lewis Carroll wrote "It is a very
inconvenient habit of kittens that whatever you
say to them, they always purr. If they would only
purr for 'yes' and mew for 'no', or any rule of
that sort, so that one could keep up a
conversation! But how can one deal with a person
if they always say the same thing?"
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