Guess who doesn't care that humans are researching this?

April 27, 2016 1:18 PM

These Linguists Want to Help You Speak Fluent Cat

Officially named “Melody in Human-Cat Communication,” the project — delightfully nicknamed “Meowsic” — is investigating the nuances of how cats speak to their humans.

posted by wonton endangerment (75 comments total)

This is very important work here. Take all my money. (throws money)
posted by Dressed to Kill at 1:26 PM on April 27, 2016 [11 favorites]

Meow meow meow meow
meow meow meow meow
meow meow meow meow
meow meow meow meow
posted by SansPoint at 1:26 PM on April 27, 2016 [11 favorites]

I have never regretted not going into research so much. If I could research cats - without having to, like, hurt them or stick needles in them - I would be the happiest Frowner alive.

My cat is, of course, the very best. My personal favorite sound is the muted wail that I hear from downstairs when she is trying to convey "you are not following your evening routine, you are supposed to be reading in bed by now and it's pissing me off that you're downstairs".
posted by Frowner at 1:42 PM on April 27, 2016 [39 favorites]

Guessing this is just for Common Language, and they'll need a new grant for the Higher Singing.
posted by Celsius1414 at 1:46 PM on April 27, 2016 [13 favorites]

I want to be helped to speak fluent cat!
posted by jeather at 1:52 PM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

sigh. I am trying to work (and type) right now, with one hand while I use the other hand to keep 15lb of fur off my keyboard. I wish there were some way I could explain to Herbert "no typing!"

I always understand what he says to me very well because there are only 2 words: meow (trans: foood!!!!!) and meow (trans: give me all the loves please)
posted by supermedusa at 1:55 PM on April 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

Today my cat ran back and forth across the house with a puffed tail, crab-walked across the bed and booped my nose, meowed a low, deep groan, ran back and forth across the house, then back onto the bed, rolled over exposing her tummy, and started purring. I'm pretty sure the only thing that can be translated out of that is "I'M A CAAAAAAAT'
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 1:57 PM on April 27, 2016 [50 favorites]

Also I'm going to declare myself a mod and insist that all comments for the rest of this thread include a picture of your cat. [I can even write it like this if that helps]
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 1:59 PM on April 27, 2016 [15 favorites]

This story makes me a bit meowlancholy cos I learned this week my poor Kitty has several bad teeth and has probably been in pain but she rowrarely complained and I didn’t know. (And the surgery is going to cost lots of scraaaatch.)

Anyway, hey, the one team member’s from Linkoping – whence my great-grandmother came. Oh, to live in wonderful Sweden AND your job is Researcher of Cat Talk.

[BuddhaInABucket those crab walks are always hilarious. I mean, very scary Kitty, very scary.]
posted by NorthernLite at 2:02 PM on April 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

ok here is sad Herbert when I won't let him sit on my lap while I'm working
posted by supermedusa at 2:14 PM on April 27, 2016 [11 favorites]

Meow meow meow meow
meow meow meow meow
meow meow meow meow
meow meow meow meow

I ALREADY FED YOU DAMMIT
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:19 PM on April 27, 2016 [24 favorites]

My cat has a proximity merp that goes off anytime somebody is within a couple of feet. It's very practical! Maybe the only practical thing about her.
posted by srboisvert at 2:24 PM on April 27, 2016 [20 favorites]

I do research in the same general area of linguistics, and thus got to be present at a presentation of some of the work by one of the co-authors at a Very Important Conference a couple of years ago.

The study was looking at human's abilities to tell a "feeding associated" vocalization from a "vet associated" vocalization. People who had cats were better at telling the two apart compared to people without cats, and they mentioned "dialect" variation as a potential area for future research.

The best part, though, was that part of the talk included video recordings of one of the lead authors talking to her cats. I can only hope that some day I am (a) cool enough and (b) tenured enough to do something like that.
posted by damayanti at 2:26 PM on April 27, 2016 [19 favorites]

I've occasionally come across the hypothesis that most cat "speech" patterns are adapted to whichever humans they happen to be hanging out with, so Cat A and Cat B may have very different understandings of the right sound to make in order to get food. It will be interesting to see what this research suggests.

Of my current three, the two males both primarily speak in a weird "blip" trill, whereas their sister prefers to "urrr" at the back of her throat. But they all share a tendency to ear-splitting squeals if I do something untoward (being behind a closed door, for example). They're not a particularly chatty group, though, unlike their predecessors (who had Opinions on all matters).
posted by thomas j wise at 2:29 PM on April 27, 2016 [15 favorites]

"Me out! Prowl now!"
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:33 PM on April 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

Of my current three

Was that taken at the job interview where they made the decision to hire you?
posted by Frowner at 2:34 PM on April 27, 2016 [53 favorites]

"Chow! Chow nowww!"
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:34 PM on April 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

I have wondered whether cats mimic the melody/rhythm of (how they hear) human speech. That could explain the elongated vocalizations (i.e.,"meowrrrowrr") they sometimes make when addressing a human audience.
posted by acb at 2:34 PM on April 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

thomas j wise has identical triplet cats who seem like they take everything very seriously.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 2:36 PM on April 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

I've occasionally come across the hypothesis that most cat "speech" patterns are adapted to whichever humans they happen to be hanging out with

It's very idosyncratic to the cat as well. I've lived with a few generations worth of cats now, and while cats that live together do copy or at least incorporate other's vocalizations into their own, each new generational batch of cats seems to have its own vocabulary to some extent.

The miaou thing is interesting though. Cats do all tend to do that and it does appear to be only for cat->human communications and particularly for cats demanding attention. Neat.
posted by bonehead at 2:36 PM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I once had a cat who had a name, but it was changed to "Mang" because after she got to be a couple years old or so that's the sound she always made: "Maaaang!".
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:38 PM on April 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

My favorite is the little meowsy grunts my cats make when they jump up onto or off of something.

Oh they have a catlogue of sounds (which sadly is long on words but short on actual sounds) that at least mentions grunts though it's not clear it's the same thing. Plus they talk about the weird chittering chirping thing my cats do while stalking the feather-on-a-string.
posted by aubilenon at 2:43 PM on April 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

I have lived with four cats over my lifetime, and they have all had very different and very distinct meows. My grumpy gus, 21-lb orange tabby looked (and acted) like a total bruiser, but he had the whiniest, complainiest meow ever. My other orange tabby, a 6-lb female with, um, learning disabilities, didn't meow -- she squeaked.

Of my current two, one is waaaay social -- cannot be left out of anything, needs to be in the middle of everything, is jealous of attention shown anything else. She hardly every meows. She sometimes says "Mrrrrrp?" when she has something to communicate (and it's always pretty obvious what she's referring to at the time), but she only really ever meows if there's a closed door and she's on the wrong side of it. Then she meows plaintively and with feeling, so's to break your heart.

My other current cat, though, is a mackrel tabby who I also thought had learning issues, but it turns out that she's just kind of reserved. SHE is the best meower ever, because she e-nunc-i-ates the meow. She actually, literally says "Meow." Sometimes it's a drawn out "Meow," like when I walk into the room and ask her "Who's a sweet Turtle?" and the answer is "MEEEEEEEOWWWWW!!" It's drawn out, but you can hear every letter absolutely clearly. She could give elocution lessons to other cats, I bet.

Anyway, yeah, cats voices and accents are totally distinct, and I don't believe it's dependent on the human. But whatever, I understand every word anyway.
posted by mudpuppie at 2:46 PM on April 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

Marceline loves to make all sorts of noises. She likes to meow (wake up, feed me, love me, pick me up, put me down, why is my food dish only half full) for just about any reason. Use the can opener and she becomes super demanding for weeks afterwards.

She was doing this this where she would meow a whole bunch before jumping off the couch to go eat. And when she woke up from a nap. Oh, and when she hunts (moths mostly) she meows them TO DEATH.
posted by Neronomius at 2:47 PM on April 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Finally! Although really, I'm quite content with my human's comprehension. She gets that when I'm running around going "ma-ra-ra-ra-raaaa ma-raa ma-ra-raaa" it means "hey, follow me and you'll notice that my current non-directional running suddenly has a purpose which is notably the door outside to the garden".

I'm still working on her understanding that "prrrrawp" means "I want a nose boop because I love you," but we're getting there.
posted by Susu pitchounette at 2:54 PM on April 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

Susu is a chatterbox when it comes to going outside, yes.

Her adoptive pal Kanoko doesn't meow often because he knows he is the most beautiful cat in the world and has merely to catch my eye to get whatever he wants (tummy rubs and ear scritches usually).

Then there is my neighbor's cat, who asked to visit my apartment when we first met. She meowed for me to open the building door, patiently guided me to her home, which... was mine?! I let her back out, at which she was like, "no there's been a misunderstanding, but that's okay, you'll see next time, silly human." A few days ago she happily asked how my run was, and I finally got to meet her human, which led to a better understanding of why she had been so insistent about visiting my place. Her door is right next to mine.
posted by fraula at 3:02 PM on April 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

Was that taken at the job interview where they made the decision to hire you?

They were patiently explaining that my need to grade papers did not take precedence over their desire to take my office space.

thomas j wise has identical triplet cats who seem like they take everything very seriously.

As long as insects or wayward rug fibers are involved.
posted by thomas j wise at 3:07 PM on April 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

RICK RICK RICK
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 3:11 PM on April 27, 2016 [22 favorites]

My cat only meows when she's distressed or afraid of something (like the evil next door cat sitting in the window). The rest of the time it's a chirpy-mrrow. As far as I can tell it generally means "Why aren't we playing right now??? Stop sitting around with that laptop/book it's time for chasing things!"
posted by quaking fajita at 3:14 PM on April 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Wait I forgot! She also makes kind of a plaintive meow-click when she sees a bug on the ceiling (or, a reflection from someone's phone or a spot on the wall that MIGHT BE A BUG)
posted by quaking fajita at 3:17 PM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

I have two Maine Coons and they are the chattiest things! Lucy (we call her cous cous mostly now) is a real grunter and triller - when you come home she'll trill all the way down the stairs to get to you, like she's winding herself up. Her favourite noise is mrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrahhh? Which means "time to play??"

Bramble is the bigger kitty but has the tiniest, most delicate sounds - she likes to wander around the house when we're settled, letting out little breathy squeaks and chirps then brings in her favourite ball so my husband will play fetch with her.

I've learned to copy most of their sounds pretty well, but I have no idea what I'm saying back.
posted by ukdanae at 3:26 PM on April 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

Speaking Fluent Cat; or, 301 Ways To Say "Fuck You, Feed Me."
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 3:33 PM on April 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

Two short stories about a Maine Coon that owned an ex of mine:

1. The first night after we'd moved in together, I thought our apartment was haunted because some time after midnight I heard something wandering the hallway, plaintively calling "MooooOOOM? MOOOOOOOOM!" It sounded enough like a small human child to make it very hard to convince myself to get out of bed and find out what it actually was.

2. After the cat and I got better acquainted, I found that if you sang "Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me" from Hee Haw, he would helpfully chime in at the appropriate times with "WWOOOOOAAAH." This was worth at least ten minutes of hilarity with any visitors.

I miss that cat.
posted by Mooski at 3:38 PM on April 27, 2016 [33 favorites]

so many cute cats!
posted by supermedusa at 3:39 PM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

My favorite is the little meowsy grunts my cats make when they jump up onto or off of something.

"MrrUMPH!"

Most of our pair's trills and meows do seem primarily directed towards us as either "GIVE ME ATTENTION" or "GIVE ME FOOD." But they do also make "brrrrr?" noises to each other as a "hey, wanna play HYPER CHASE TIME?" invitation.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:49 PM on April 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Want to communicate with your cat? Make a sound like an electric can opener.
posted by Splunge at 3:52 PM on April 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

This morning on the way home from being neutered, my cat just meowed constantly. I don't know where he got the breath or energy, I thought for sure his throat must be sore after all that nonstop yelling. Then as we got hear home, he started sticking his paws out of the holes in the cat crate. "Aww," I thought, "he's reaching out. He wants me to comfort him and stroke his paw and tell him he's almost home and it'll be all right." So I did that, and he thanked me by slicing a nice deep channel an inch long down my right thumb, to the point that I nearly went off the road, because he really got it hooked in and was trying to get my whole hand into the box with him. So now I'm typing this one-handed, not because the usual trying-to-keep-the-cat-off-the-keyboard, but because I only have one functional hand right now.

Well, I can't be too mad, I suppose. My thumb will grow back.
posted by Hal Mumkin at 3:59 PM on April 27, 2016 [14 favorites]

So that Meow Mix song was actually a summoning of Satan?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:34 PM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

Okra talks constantly whenever I'm in the kitchen. It's not really for food - she just feels that the kitchen is Social Area and clearly I should be playing with her whenever we're in there. At least that's how I interpret it. She's pretty quiet everywhere else. Unless, of course, she can see a bird, at which point it's time for bird noises. It never seems to occur to her that you can be as stealthy as you want sneaking up on the window but if you're constantly chirruping, that bird will hear you.
posted by mygothlaundry at 4:34 PM on April 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

It never seems to occur to her that you can be as stealthy as you want sneaking up on the window but if you're constantly chirruping, that bird will hear you.

I got the impression this is some kind of cat self-hype, shit-talk that they kind of muter to themselves because they take great personal insult at the smugness in which the bird folk fly gracefully through the air, so tantalizingly out of reach, if only *just*.
posted by some loser at 4:47 PM on April 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

Like there's some kind of genetic memory of a great falling out between ancient cats and birds, such that all cats are wired with the knowledge that birds are a threat to all cat kind, not to be trusted, and terminated with extreme prejudice wherever possible. I say this because, they never, ever, ever make these noises at anything else, as far as I've seen. And I've seen some cats, let me tell you.
posted by some loser at 4:52 PM on April 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

"Honey what are you doing down there?"
"I'm looking at pictures of other people's POOSEYKATTTZ!?"
"Well you know, there's a POOSEYKATT! right here in the kitchen that wants your attention!"
"I JUST FED HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
posted by some loser at 5:00 PM on April 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

The much-missed, much-loved cyber bear Julia was the chattiest cat I've ever met. She would announce her entrance into a room with the same noise every time - a sort of "mmbrimpp?", which I translated as "Er - hello hairless apes, notice me NOW". She would also grumble, express disdain, swear and invite all the fuss right at this moment. She would definitely respond to me if I spoke to her by meowing back immediately - so I could look at her and say "Hey bear" and she'd let out a short meow, and I'd repeat and she'd repeat, still making eye contact (she was always doing the eye contact thing - she was fearless) and we would be making these repeated noises at each other for a minute or so. I like to think she was desperately trying to make first contact with the benign primates by trying to teach me the right way to say hello. Cats are bright enough but Julia definitely had something going on behind the eyes. I miss that little cat so much it surprises me even now several years after she died.
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 5:09 PM on April 27, 2016 [14 favorites]

Yorvit sings ("waaaoooow!!") when I come home, so of course I sing back. Roswell quacks, so I do that, too. Roswell also makes the hunting-chatter sound when the Roku new-episode-starting symbol plays on the TV. Sometimes he gets up to pat the screen, but usually not.

(Right now, Roswell and I are playing fetch, and he is purring anxiously at me because he wants me to throw the toy again, but he has dropped it rather far away. This means I make grabby motions with one hand in the direction of the toy, and then he brings it closer. Eventually. Sometimes.)
posted by rtha at 5:16 PM on April 27, 2016 [11 favorites]

Jasper purrs all the time. He purrs when he's playing with toys, like play attacking them! He's such a good natured boy. The only time he's not purring is when he's critiquing my abilities to toss his toy to the top of the cat castle for him to fetch. He's got a whole series of tweets and chirps and "Close, but no banana!" or "TOO BAD, but look what you could've won!" and so forth.

He's pretty silly. Well, they all are. Jasper is just easier to photograph.

Little Kiwi has an enormous vocabulary. She has trained me to understand "I'm in the bathroom, come in and turn on the water in the sink!", "I'm up on top of something very tall, come here and praise me for it!", and the inevitable "Where are the TREATS!" which is only surprising in the respect that she's the only one in the household who gives a fuck about treats.

Cosgrove doesn't really talk that much, but she is such a good kitty.
posted by janey47 at 5:20 PM on April 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

Pico makes an excellent meow whenever we get a peacock feather for him to play with. His meows are normally really cute, but the feather-meows sound fake to my ears.

He also stands outside the bathroom door and yowls at us until we come out.
posted by you could feel the sky at 5:24 PM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Like there's some kind of genetic memory of a great falling out between ancient cats and birds, such that all cats are wired with the knowledge that birds are a threat to all cat kind, not to be trusted, and terminated with extreme prejudice wherever possible.

I've been entertaining similar thoughts about the mostly dog-sided animosity between dogs and cats since I read this:

Competition from cats drove extinction of many species of ancient dogs

Competition played a more important role in the evolution of the dog family (wolves, foxes, and their relatives) than climate change, shows a new international study. Researchers analyzed over 2000 fossils and revealed that the arrival of felids to North America from Asia had a deadly impact on the diversity of the dog family, contributing to the extinction of as many as 40 of their species. ...
...
Interestingly, while felids appeared to have a strongly negative impact on the survival of ancient dogs, the opposite is not true. This suggests that felids must have been more efficient predators than most of the extinct species in the dog family.

posted by jamjam at 5:37 PM on April 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

I hope one day we can build on this and prioritize the funding necessary to develop a theoretical framework for mapping the continuum between mlems and bleps in an evidence-based phase space of social context, tongue position, and mlemnal aspect.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 5:41 PM on April 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

I hope one day we can build on this and prioritize the funding necessary to develop a theoretical framework for mapping the continuum between mlems and bleps on an evidence-based phase space of social context, tongue position, and mlemnal aspect.

And when this great work comes to fruition, and first official diplomatic relations are to be established, I nominate myself to be out ambassador. I was born for this, trust me. Ask any cat. Except Brit... she hates me for some unknown reason. I suspect she is actually an alien entity masquerading as a cat, knowing if she lets me too close, I'll uncover her subterfuge.
posted by some loser at 5:44 PM on April 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

Forget the Metafilter cookbook. The real project that needs to be undertaken here is the Metafilter Dictionary of Meows.
posted by mudpuppie at 6:03 PM on April 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

Our kitty-niece Maggie is quite the chatterbox, although I'm pretty sure the only thing she knows how to say is "FOOD FOOD TIME FOR FOOD PLEASE" (seriously, I've never seen a cat so obsessed with food, she practically inhales it) or maybe "love me! Pet me!" on occasion. Also glad to have an excuse to post a picture of the new kitty, she just joined our household last month :)
posted by photo guy at 6:07 PM on April 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

This I must confess, from the secret oak paneled labs of Tuxedo Park, a 1916 experiment sought to pattern animal brain waves. Sucess was met with limited results. Tesla was flown in. Edison held an open line to hear of the magnificent discovery. A young Calvin Cooledge was present and was unexpectedly hit with the DR-100 meowtonator rendering young Calvin speechless and something had changed, Warren Harding saw it but kept it close, VP close.

That is the secret history of the first feline president.
posted by clavdivs at 6:29 PM on April 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

I read this to my dog and my birds. The dog thought it was very funny. My parakeets asked me if this would mean that I was getting a cat, nervously. Very nervously. I assured that it would not happen. My cockatoo wanted to know when we would get a cat. And then let him out of his cage. To 'make friends' with the cat.

I think he just wanted a cat tail to hang in his cage.
posted by Splunge at 6:37 PM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Before reading this thread, I knew nothing of nose boops. Damn, was I missing out.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 7:14 PM on April 27, 2016 [8 favorites]

This suggests that felids must have been more efficient predators than most of the extinct species in the dog family.

Well duh, dogs happily eat garbage. And cat poops.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:32 PM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

CAN OPENER CAN OPENER TEACH ME CAN OPENER DAMN YOU
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:34 PM on April 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

Battleship can't meow. And he's rather silent, except when he's jumping down from anything over 6" when he makes an old man "oooomph" sound.

He does "maaaaaaaah" at closed doors like a demented sheep though at 6am, although he never makes that noise (or any noise really) otherwise.
posted by larthegreat at 7:37 PM on April 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

Excellent use of the 'toxoplasmosis' tag.
posted by you're a kitty! at 8:28 PM on April 27, 2016 [12 favorites]

Emerson the Amazing Wonder Cat and I have a fairly good rapport, though I've never been able to convey to him that when I'm sleeping it should be quiet time. He may, perhaps, already understand this, but just has differing objectives. Hard to tell. C'est la vie.

This is great research, nonetheless.
posted by talking leaf at 8:50 PM on April 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

We have a silent cat, too. Our vet calls them 'whisper cats.' Clementine only makes a few peeps. Roxie does all the talking. We got them as kittens--they are sisters--and it took awhile to realize that Clem really couldn't talk. She does purr. Napping.
posted by Nosey Mrs. Rat at 9:15 PM on April 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

My floofer has some identifiable meows ("You're taking too long to put my bowl down!" and "Help! I'm stuck! My claw!") but I'm DYING to know the rest of them, especially the BRRRRRP!
posted by meemzi at 9:47 PM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is a delightful story and I clearly went into the wrong academic field.

My sweet Mihri is the most talkative cat I've ever known--she just keeps up a sort of constant running commentary on the world at large, in addition to the usual hello, feed me, pay attention to me, let me out, etc vocalizations (and the dreaded oh-fuck-we're-on-an-airplane yowl). She also likes to converse--if you speak to her, she'll reply with a meow or trill or chirp and carry on back and forth for a good several minutes. She was an Istanbul street kitten before she adopted me, so I've always wondered if she learned some of that extensive (and presumably bilingual?) vocabulary from all her friends and relatives in the garden of our building there.
posted by karayel at 10:18 PM on April 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

My Uncle Man, a black cat, talked up a storm. It was a constant back and forth verbal interaction with him. I wouldn't have been able to get away from it even if I'd wanted to. When I first met him he gave me a full tour of the store where he was hanging out for the weekend, talking and talking and talking the whole time. He was wearing a leash but totally ignored it and the attendant holding the other end of it.

Throughout his life, during my time with him, Uncle Man constantly maintained a dialog with me. Often, I didn't know precisely what he was trying to say, but we understood each other. He proved to be a good field photographer when one day I provided him with a camera, but I had to cut his new career short when I began discovering pics he had doubtlessly not inadvertently taken of neighborhood sunbathers.

At night, Uncle was not afraid to use his special feline powers to get my attention and/or trigger a specific, desired reaction when he had to, or both, and in fact he never ignored an opportunity when a situation indicated. For example, in the middle of the night he frequently and successfully used his heat vision on my bladder and employed a classic strategy of launching himself off a high shelf and directly down onto my abdomen.

In the end, Uncle succumbed to a somewhat early death after experiencing a random brain aneurysm on a neighborhood sidewalk. RIP, my friend.
posted by christopherious at 12:16 AM on April 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

I got the impression this is some kind of cat self-hype, shit-talk that they kind of muter to themselves because they take great personal insult at the smugness in which the bird folk fly gracefully through the air, so tantalizingly out of reach, if only *just*.

I think I read that the chitter was a frustrated neck-bite motion.
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:56 AM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

My cat Nancy is quite vocal, and she and I have been teaching each other vocabulary for a while. She has a very specific sort of flat, constricted quiet meeeeeeow noise she makes that specifically is related to food. I also ask her "do you want your food?" in the exact same sort of tonal sing-song every time, so these two are obviously connected. She doesn't make that noise for any of the other phrases I repeat for her exactly the same way every time. If she's not looking for food, she doesn't make that noise.

She also has a specific yowling for attention from the back of the house (which I think is similar for most cats who do this; not all cats do this). And a specific rising tone, questioning sort of noise she makes sometimes, it seems to center around insecurity of some sort, because she usually comes looking for me and for attention from me while she is making this noise.

Rocky, the boy cat, isn't as vocal, but when he is, every noise he makes is always a plaintive rising tone, sometimes longer or shorter, and somehow my brain interprets his high pitched tone as doing it in falsetto or Michael Jackson voice. I haven't found many distinctive speech patterns from him, but he does seem to be trying to communicate. I also do phrases for him the exact same way every time, different from the ones I do with Nancy, and he does respond to some of those with body language or heading off to lead me somewhere or something. It's quite fascinating.

My most interesting cat/speech experience was with Tiny. Tiny was a, well, very tiny kitten when he came into my house, the runt of the litter, left behind when the mother moved her newly born brood to a safer spot for rearing than her birthing den. Probably not even 2 weeks old, I quickly arranged with my job (which was pretty flexible) to get to my house every 2-3 hours to give the kitten yet another bottle of warmed Trader Joe's goat milk (which is apparently good for growing kittens; cow milk is not), and to check the temperature of its warming box, which had a teddy bear and a wind-up alarm clock in it (to provide a heartbeat sort of thing for the kitten), and to put on the Kitten T-shirt and get a warm wet rag and get the kitten to piss and defecate, because when they are very young they lack that reflex for themselves.

I raised this kitten with as much attention as needed until its eyes opened, and until it started crawling out of its box on its own, and until it started using a litter box on its own, and eating solid food. And one interesting side effect of this was, when the kitten vocalized, it wasn't a sustained meow or yowl or anything... it was vocal sounds broken up by glottal stops and other chattering noises (similar to yet completely different from what others have noted cats make toward birds outside the window). It was unlike any noise I have ever heard a cat make before. I could say something to him, and he would make noises back, and it was peculiarly like Timmy talking to Flipper or something. I'd never experienced anything like it before.

I often wonder, if Tiny were still around, what sort of conversations we might be having. (I won't go into details, but Tiny was only in my life about 4 months, sadly. So much sadness. :( )
posted by hippybear at 1:17 AM on April 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

And a specific rising tone, questioning sort of noise she makes sometimes, it seems to center around insecurity of some sort, because she usually comes looking for me and for attention from me while she is making this noise.

I'm familiar with variations on this one.. I think it roughly translates to "still love me?".
posted by some loser at 1:24 AM on April 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Pretty sure that 20% of what my cat says translates to "No one has fed me in the last 10 minutes! I'm starving!" and the other 80% to "Unacceptable! One thousand years dungeon!"
posted by Jacqueline at 4:00 AM on April 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

One of my cats climbs on me, snuggles close and then commences endless meow nagging. It's basically the cat version of a toddler's why why why why why why why. I think she purposely gives no hints at all as to what she wants, I'm supposed to guess (dance, human, dance!).

One day, in great frustration I said "use your words!". She paused for a moment, looked even more disdainful and then said MEOW!

Fair point kitty, your use of words is fine, I'm just too dim to understand you.

Kitty 1, human 0
posted by kitten magic at 4:08 AM on April 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'd have a lot more respect for linguists if they dropped most of their current studies and devoted themselves to learning the feline language.
posted by pxe2000 at 4:17 AM on April 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Our two cats Autolycus and Hestia came from the same litter. We met the mother while visiting the kittens' foster family before adoption and she was a very intelligent cat, a sleek black cat of Siamese build who talked to her litter as a way of checking in. She'd go mrrrp and each kitten would respond with similar high-pitched eep sounds. The cats picked up several of her traits, including scratching at the floor when done with food to "cover" it up and, logically, scratching at the floor before eating again to uncover the food so craftily hidden.

Autolycus has his own form of echolocation, a mraaao which he uses when he's alone and feeling a little insecure and doesn't know where anybody is. Usually a person responds; if he's checking after his sister she usually doesn't deign to sound off. He also has a prRRRrm, rising and falling in intonation, which I've come to know as the sound of curiosity and frustration (I can't get at the thing I want) as well as problem-solving (perhaps jumping on the shelf will help, time to calculate trajectory). He also has a peculiar fondness for making a smeck sound by sticking his tongue out and pulling it back in quickly; a cat version of smacking one's lips which doesn't seem to correlate with any particular activity. He sometimes does it after eating, but he'll also just go smeck when hanging around. I think he just likes to make the percussive sound, though it is similar enough to the tongue-snapping noise I make when I feed them (it's interesting to see who online is engaged in similar Pavlovian pursuits at feeding time) that he might have picked it up from me.

Hestia definitely has the Siamese in the family; she has the graceful legs and apple head and is very, very chatty. She has a similar prRRRrm of consternation but rarely uses it. She prefers open vowel sounds with intonations that resemble conversational Human. She has the interrogative mewww? as well as the declarative mraao! and when in a good mood sounds as if she's having a conversation with herself. I've heard her let loose with a string of what were probably expletives after she jumped on a wobbly box that then tipped over. She understands several phrases from me, most notably "Are you hungry?" which is answered with the same meo every time, and she recognizes "Stop that!" well enough to sass me back. I've had A-B-A-B conversations with her this way, when she's doing something such as scratching the wall:

"Stop that!"
"Mrrrao-rao!" (looks me straight in the eye, continues to bat at the wall)
"It's not a bug, it's a spot on the wall."
"Meeerew." (bats at the wall a few times to prove it)
"It's the same spot you always go for. You can't eat it."
"RRRmew." (swats one more time for good measure, stalks off to find a sock to steal)

She also communicates with me using the slow blink, which came in very handy when we moved last year and she got very nervous and hid under the bed for the better part of two weeks. I fed her under the bed and always made sure to give her a slow blink, just to let her know everything was okay. She started blinking back, and eventually realized her rightful rule of the entire premises. We still slow blink very regularly. Autolycus, he doesn't go in for the slow blinking, though he does have moon-shaped panther eyes which he uses to look Very Sincere And Earnest when trying to mooch whatever it is you're eating.
posted by Spatch at 4:17 AM on April 28, 2016 [8 favorites]

Copland is a little chatterbox, though he seems to be mostly interested in telling us that he wants a snuggle, that he's tuckered out from the zoomies, or just general cat business. He also frequently meows while yawning, which is hilarious. I'm sorry that none of those are videos because it is really cute.

He does have a pretty specific meow for when his food bowl is empty, though. Trained us well.
posted by everybody had matching towels at 6:12 AM on April 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

My cat was never much of a talker (apart from a daily triumphant howl to announce "I HAVE POOPED") until she became an our cat. When my partner and I moved in together, she suddenly became so chatty that I took her to the vet and made sure she wasn't somehow dying.

She is not dying. Current theory is that she feels left out of our ongoing hooman blatherings, and feels compelled to say her piece. Whereas previously, she had my undivided, and relatively silent, attention.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:26 AM on April 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

my lumpy baby Flora isn't very vocal compared to most other cats i know, but she has the loudest purr i've ever heard and she does it almost constantly. if we're both laying around and i make eye contact with her, she immediately starts purring (i call it her "senpai noticed me!!" response)

she also grunts a lot when she's batting around her mouse toys. i love my fat lil fluffy ball of cat
posted by burgerrr at 12:59 PM on April 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

BREAKING NEWS: The kitty I am cat-sitting just just ramped up her purring so quickly and to such a volume that she wound up emitting a short series of flat chirps. It sounded sort like a robin burping.

She then wandered off very casually to sit under a plant.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 1:57 PM on April 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

Does anyone else's kitty purr so hard that it looks like something might be wrong with them? Lucy sometimes purrs so violently that her whole body trembles and it looks like she's freezing to death or fitting or something. It scared the hell out of me the first time! Now I understand it as "YOU ARE MY SPECIAL PERSON LOOK LOOK HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU"
posted by ukdanae at 2:19 AM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]