The Cat’s Meow: What Kitty Is Trying to Tell You

I can barely stumble out of bed in the morning before my cat tries to strike up a conversation. As she goes through her busy day, she tells me when she’s ready to eat, when she wants to play, and if she’s in another room and sees a bug, she demands that I come vanquish it immediately. She doesn’t speak English, of course, but she’s trained me to correctly interpret every little sound she makes, from the meekest “meep” to the mightiest “MROW!” 

Talk Kitty to Me
When cats communicate with each other, they do so almost silently. Felines mostly communicate through smell and body language, rarely having to raise their voices. Cats leave scent markers to tell other cats about their sex, their reproductive status, and their health, and when communicating face to face, they rely on a complex system of postures and body language to let each other know how they’re feeling. Cats are experts at communication, so with the exception of hisses and growls, most cat-to-cat interactions are wordless. When the humans enter the room, however, suddenly everyone’s got something to say. That’s because many of the vocalizations cats make are expressly for human benefit.   

Cats start meowing when they’re kittens, in order to get their mother’s attention and food, and the most vocal babies are the ones who get the most of each. Domestic cats never grow out of this juvenile vocalization, because they’ve learned that it’s a pretty effective way to get what they want from people. It’s almost as if domestic cats think of us as mother figures, and they’re not afraid to let us know when they’re hungry, angry, or want some affection. 

Speaking Felinese
Animal behaviorists have identified sixteen distinct feline focal patterns, including chirps and trills, hisses and growls, purrs, and meows. Recently, researchers from England determined that besides the regular persistent meows that cats use to get what they want, they also have a special “soliciting purr” that’s a meow embedded into a purr, and it’s especially useful when asking for a midnight snack or belly rub since the frequency and pitch mimic the urgent cries of human babies. 

To cat owners, this isn’t news. Cats love to communicate with us, but they know that we prefer vocal communication to body language. Cats are experts at learning simple commands (words like “treat” and “play”) and their name, but what they usually respond to is the particular tone and pitch that humans use when talking to cats, and not necessarily the words themselves. The way we speak to pets is the same way we speak to babies, a simplified language called “baby talk” or “motherese,” and it’s full of repeated syllables, simplified words, and exaggerated facial expressions.Cats learn to respond to humans’ vocalizations by creating vocalizations of their own, even though their larynxes aren’t built for actual speech. They reply to human vocal communication in much the same way that babies learn to speak, through listening and imitation.