Can Cats Talk?

Another feature of human speech is that it comes in bursts; a mix of different sounds and pauses between sounds, plus inflection and intonation. Tone of voice probably means much more to a cat than the actual words used, although many owners maintain that their cat understands every word they say. Cats certainly manage intonation and can miaow in a questioning manner, a demanding manner, a forlorn manner or simply as a statement.

By observing our response they adopt the various tones of miaow for appropriate circumstances. Puss probably isn't thinking "I want to go out so I shall ask nicely," he is more likely to be thinking "I want to go out and I know that this type of noise usually does the trick."

In their attempts to communicate with us on our own level, some cats put together full "sentences" of noises and pauses. They might simply be inviting us to talk back to them (most cats like this sort of attention from their owners). It is interesting that such cats string together a series of different sounds into a single burst of communication, with pauses between "words", which an owner likens to a sentence. Scrapper (one of felinity's brighter sparks) could hold his own in a conversation with me although I haven't a clue what he was saying, he just liked to talk and liked me to talk back.

If he did understand what I was saying to him he could have taken the Business Studies exam with me (if he was trying to enlighten me on a particular aspect of management structure then I'm afraid it went right over my head). Some owners say that their cats do much the same and are right chatterboxes, with Siamese and Oriental cats being particularly vocal.

I doubt very much that cats, those from C S Lewis's Narnia excepted, can truly speak, although cat-sounds are more diverse and more meaningful than Lewis Caroll suggests. What I don't doubt is that there are a number of cats having a jolly good attempt - whether in Turkish or any other tongue. What is worrying though, is when I am doing the evening shift at a cat shelter and I am convinced that I can hear someone talking, even though there are no other humans, only cats, in the vicinity. So far none of the cats have owned up!

Have Cats Evolved to Communicate with Humans?

While not claiming that cats have acquired the power of human speech, in 2002, a Cornell University researcher investigated whether cats vocally manipulate their humans. Nicholas Nicastro, a graduate student working under psychology professor Michael Owren at Cornell University's Psychology of Voice and Sound Laboratory said that cats were obviously very dependent on people for their needs and that they may have evolved to become better at managing and manipulating people. While domestic cats may not know language, his study suggested that cats, which have lived alongside humans for thousands of years, have adapted their "meows" to better communicate with humans.