How do cats take it when they meow at you and then you respond by copying them and meowing back?
I think I can answer this in one sentence but I welcome the input of others. If you meow at a domestic cat they will hear a sound but they won’t relate to it as a meow from a cat. They will relate to it as a sound from a human being who they possibly regard as a surrogate mother of abnormal size and without fur! They won’t interpret the sound in any meaningful way except its tone and timing will convey a message.
Meow sound
An interesting aspect of this question is that the cat meow has evolved to be a sound made by cats towards their human caretaker based on reward. Domestic cats feel that they have to meow to get our attention (humans are unobservant compared to cats). Cats learn that meowing gets our attention and the cat may make the sound at specific places and under certain circumstances.
It is said that feral cats rarely meow at each other and are very silent compared to feral cats. The domestic cat meow is a vocalisation whereby the cat requests something. It is believed to be particular to the domestic cat and quite specific (however some wild cats make meow-type sounds). There are variations to the domestic cat meow depending on the result required. Humans learn the meaning of these meows.
Meow said by person carries a meaning
You cannot transfer the specific usage of this feline vocalisation to the human when the human talks to their cat. It does not carry the same meaning under these circumstances. Nonetheless it does carry meaning because if the meow sound is made in a gentle and nice way your cat will receive it in the spirit with which it is intended. It will be reassuring to your cat like all reassuring sounds are.
On occasions I have meowed at my cat or I have copied the sound that he is making and directed it back at him. I did it to see his response. He made no response. It was meaningless for him as expected.
Communicating with cats
The question in the title begs another question which is could humans speak the feline language? I don’t believe that cats have a language like humans. They do communicate however. This is quite clear. But I don’t think you could call it a language in the classic meaning of the word.
Compared to humans, domestic cats communicate using:
- vocalisations – cats have quite a range of vocalisations
- body language – dominance and subservience for example
- scents – scent marking, rubbing etc.
- routines – vis à vis their human companion and other cats
Using these forms of communication we do communicate with cats. We do it all the time and it works really well. This is my opinion and once again I welcome the views of others.
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Cats have an amazing array of sounds. Learning the sound a mother cats makes when she calls her babies is helpful. Frog and Toad will come running. I’ve also had it work on feral cats who I wasn’t sure were there for food.
All animals have a complex language of their own plus they manage to pick up lots of our words.
Thanks and yes although I am not sure about cats ‘picking up lot of our words’. Cats will understand the meaning of the sounds of the words we make sometimes. That’s my assessment.
Yes they know the sound of the word. Also our pets are very sensitive to our body language.
I don’t understand any of that, or why people tend to make things more complicated than they have to. I’ll just paste what I wrote on Facebook in response to the question.
It seems to me that they take it better than human words. It’s more or less an acknowledgement that you’re trying to think like they think by sounding like they sound… that you’re in the same world. I think it’s more of an exchange of feelings about the moment, not thoughts. It’s the same as when you get down on their level – you’re not exchanging a lot of information, but they appreciate the effort, and it’s not known how much information they glean from words anyway, though it is more. Now I’ll see what the prevailing wisdom is on this.
Apparently I can’t add anything to our conversations anymore so…
Albert I am not sure what you mean but your comments are very valuable to me. They are always excellent. At the moment I am busy trying to bash out more than the usual number of articles to build on the success of one done Elisa about the animal shelter worker Stacey Radin who ended her life. That page received 65,000 views and boosted the site. It is hard to keep the site up there challenging the big boys who have many people working for the website. Hope u are well.
I think that making almost any sound to your cat assures them that you are paying attention to them in a caring way. Interestingly when I make the usual chee chee, or choo choo, or meowing sound to them they don’t pay much attention at all, But when I start talking to a cat the others very quickly forget what they are doing and run to me from all directions. Perhaps (more than perhaps) they do not identify those silly sounds as specific to me but rather to other cats. Other cats are not interesting to them because they provide no food, no nowt, actually. My normal talking voice is specific to me and I am the one that provides everything they need. I have seen that cats do not meow to other cats but only to their kittens and their owners, and in each case in a specific and different way. A meow from their kittens or their owner will only confuse them because that is the opposite of what they understand. They meow to their kittens and their owner, not the other way round. The chee chee or choo choo sound we make is an approximation to the sound that kittens make, but those sounds mean nothing to a post lactation female or an adult male. Just talk normally to your cats.
Thanks Harvey. As usual I agree with you. Hope you and your cats are well.