Cat Communication and Language

Most cats tend not to vocalize with strangers unless the stranger approaches them (less often the cat approaches a stranger for food or fuss). The vocalization then depends on whether the cat is fearful or friendly. If fearful the cat may hiss or growl and thrash its tail (agitation) to warn the stranger not to approach any closer. If friendly it will meow or purr and its tail will stick upwards (greeting) inviting attention, or possibly begging for food. Stray cats living around restaurants learn to beg appealingly to diners - this is linked to food begging, though some do enjoy interaction and a fuss.

Cats also learn to communicate with other household animals e.g. dogs. They are less likely to vocalize because dogs can interpret scent signals and can learn some feline body language. Sometimes the cat must reinforce its unspoken message with a hiss if the other animals ignores or fails to understand body language. Like cats, dogs also rely greatly on body language. In a household setting, cats and dogs are in close enough proximity for long enough that they can learn each other's body language to some degree.

Feral cats rely more on their native body language. They don't need so many variations of "meow". They use all the "major sounds" e.g. yowl, growl, etc but they rely much more on non-verbal communication to convey meaning - posture, gesture, facial expression, tail position, whisker position, ear position, scent-marking - with vocalization often being a last resort to augment or reinforce the non-verbal communication or when they can't see each other properly.

Feral cats with little or no contact with humans don't learn so much "spoken" language as do housecats. They have no need to learn a vocalized "second language" because they are communicating with native speakers of "cat body language".

Details of big cat vocalization is out of scope of this article. Big cats have their own repertoire of sounds e.g. the rumbled greeting of lionesses and the distinctive "chuff" of tigers. Two important differences are that big cats cannot purr because the structure of their throat does not permit it and small cats cannot roar. Cubs may "mew", but adult big cats do not "meow".

Individual big cats are sometimes tamed e.g. if hand-reared, but big cat species have never been domesticated in the same way as the housecat. It has been suggested that living alongside humans has meant that the process of evolving a domestic subspecies from a wild ancestor went hand-in-hand with increased vocalization in domestic cats. Big cats have not been through thousands of years of evolving a domestic subspecies and have not needed to communicate with humans.

The Language of Smell