this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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Something I once read is that different cats don't seem to use exactly the same noise to mean the same thing, ie, one cat might use a certain sort of meow to show that it is hungry, but another cat might use a similar meow to show that they want attention. Further, that wild cats usually stop making many such noises after they grow up, but domestic ones keep using them to communicate with people. If this is true, then the cat noises don't really represent a cat language as such since each individual cat would have it's own different set of vocabulary it develops in an attempt to get humans to understand it, being forced to resort to being all dramatic and acting like a kitten to get their message across because humans are sometimes too clueless to understand their body language.
This is true, and it's absolutely fascinating, because it's literally the birth of a tiny language every time. The cat makes noise and notices that the human does something it wants, which makes the cat associate the noise with the action. The human hears the noise repeatedly and notices that the cat is happy about what they are doing, so they associate the noise with the action. It's a shared language between two individuals, which is just so precious!
Your explanation is so precious!
No you’re so precious!
MYYYYYYYYYY PREEEEECIOUS
I've got two cats who are sisters and they indeed have very different meows, not just sound but how they use them. One has a very distinct greeting meow literally only reserved for when she hasn't seen me in a few hours that is isn't in any way replicated by her sister.
Is it a "meep ippit urp rrr" kind of sound? Cause that's how mine does it.
No its a very high pitched 'weeoooweeeeeee'. Her sister does more of soft mew followed by a brrp.
i imagine it's like when we can't find the words to explain something and we just point at it and go "there, see that? that thing! over there! i'm pointing at it you dolt! aaargh!"
Even though i won't check it i would like you to provide a source for this very cool info!!