An acoustic study of domestic cat meows in 6 contexts and 4 mental states
peerj.com
peerj.com
- Greeting chirrup. Staccato rising chirps. Every time they round a corner and see me.
- “Reunification” greeting. Reserved for when I’ve been away overnight. Similar to above, but with higher frequency overtones, longer chirrups.
- “I want” - flat toned short meows. Usually expressed at an empty bowl or a closed window.
- “lonely” - mournful yowls, long, rising then falling.
- “have prey” - similar to “greeting”, but intermixed with longer rising meows
- “lost prey” - similar to “lonely” but with a sustained flat tone at the end of each meow
- “frustrated by inaccessible prey” - chattering, occasional high flat chirrups
They talk to each other, and definitely understand what the other is saying - if one hears “have prey” from outside, it will go out to watch. If one hears the other greeting, it will swiftly appear making the same tones.
I talk back to them with whistles matching their patterns, and they absolutely understand.
Thing is, it doesn’t seem to be universal, as when they meet other cats they try to talk, and then give up in frustration. It appears to me that there are dialects, and idiosyncratic isolates from cats raised apart from other cats - and they do learn the dialects of others, eventually - each time they spend any extended period with other cats I note new or extended vocalisations.
Birds, too. I’ve lived in a forest for years, and they talk - I’ll hear the long-tailed tits making one call, and I’ll look up to see a raptor - or another call, and they’ll be alerting each other to the cats.
Oh, and really interestingly, we have a fox who consistently visits and hangs out with the cats - we don’t feed her or anything of the sort, but nor do we shoo her away or show aggression - and she’s learned bits of cat body language and vocalisation - greeting chirps in particular, which she expressed to both me and the cats, and cat-style “I’m relaxed, so should you be” stretching and belly-exposure. The cats accept her as one of their own, and I’ll often find them all just chilling in a little sleepy triangle.
Anyway. It’s all apocryphal and likely in no small part me anthropomorphising, but I am absolutely convinced that animals have rudimentary language.
and you should see it trying to "talk" to raccoons
For example, the "lonely" call is one mine do regularly when they want the other to join them. One will let out a mournful yowl from the other side of the house and the other will swiftly join them for cuddles / playtime.
The "frustrated by inaccessible prey" is another interesting one to hear because of how unique it is. You described it perfectly!
Like you, I'm convinced that they have a specific lexicon of meows that allows them to both communicate verbally and when they're close to each other they use more non-verbal methods of communication.
I don't see it!
There is a project home page at http://meowsic.se/ but no apparent corpus of the hundreds of meows.
CatMeows: A Publicly-Available Dataset of Cat Vocalizations
https://zenodo.org/record/4008297
Although it seems to be from a different group.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/wq1cs2/cats_meowing_at...
Great video though, I saw the full thing on YouTube and it's just great how much socialising cats do on their own.
https://youtu.be/2JrkxfDNabk - also cat chittering at a bird at 4:45
(Yes, cats scare me.)
* They’re angry or scared, where they’ll hiss and growl at you with their hackles up
* They think it’s play, they’ll usually be bouncing around
* They’re overstimulated and want you to stop touching them, so their tail will start flicking
Playing with hands is also something that should be discouraged, strongly, especially if it involves biting attempts. This is almost universally the fault of people who raise kittens using their hands as playtoys with said kittens. Please, please never use your hands as playtoys with kittens or young cats - only cat toys, strings, etc.
He also missed #4. Cat bites you because it wants pets.
I'd suggest seeking treatment for the phobia, too.
FYI, if you have friends with cats in their homes, they may seem magnetically drawn to you when you visit. That's because many cats generally prefer interactions on their own terms. Ironically people who don't like cats end up doing exactly what they like.
BTW, "Cat Watching" by Desmond Morris explains their body language quite well.
A cat enters the room, sees a lot of people making noise and movements. The exception is someone sitting very stil. This person, as seen trough the eyes of a cat,is the ideal cat seat, who cares if he's literally scared stiff.
The solution is for cat-phobic people to make extravagant movements, so the cat chooses someone calmer.
If you want to make friends with a cat, it is ok to look in their direction for a while, but make a few slow blinks in between. If the cat blinks back, you are halfway there.