Catspeak is Tonal, and Every Word Begins With 'M'

[SoDesuKa]

There's very little that you can say in Catspeak that does not begin with an M. Uproarious cat fights are the exception because the protagonists exchange cuss words - which begin with a vowel. Hissing is also exceptional, so the general rule still holds.

The lack of a written language is hampering my efforts to develop a Catspeak dictionary. One advantage of Catspeak is that it's even more universal than Esperanto; i.e., Chinese cats speak it as fluently as Costa Rican cats or Oklahoma cats. I'm told that California cats have a unique inflection, but friends in Santa Barbara call it a regionalism.

My cats use an abbreviated form of Catspeak when they address each other. When they address me, however, they're more observant of tonality and grammar. Some expressions are so indiomatic that only native speakers know their true meaning. I thought headbutting meant "I like you," but my tomcat recoiled as if to say, Are you friggin' daft?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Not everything starts with "M."

My cats say things like:

Narr.
Yow.
Brrrrp.

[rurallib]

2. but it usually smells of fish or chicken.

[SoDesuKa]

3. It's Nearly Dawn - Are You Sleeping Well?

My tomcat often expresses concern for how well I'm sleeping. He means well, but I'd like to tell him I was sleeping all right until you woke me up. My Catspeak isn't fluent, so I usually mumble something to the effect of God Damn Cat.

[Archae]

4. Charlotte does that too.

"Purr purr purr...oh did I wake you up? (licks my nose,) purr purr purr..." :-)

[nuxvomica]

9. Indeed

My now departed cat Amos could perfectly enunciate my name when he was calling for me. "Jooooooooooe!" he would say.

[Demoiselle]

12. My dear departed cat Wacket called my name all the time.

He'd stand in our stairwell hall and call "CAROL!" Distinctly two syllables. Well, alright, it was more "MmmmARROL!" but he came real close.
We have six formerly feral kittens in the house, only one of whom does a lot of chirruping and trilling. All the rest have very small high meows, except for Olga, the matronly Calico, who sounds like Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar. "Mmmmyeah! MmmmYEAH!"
Her little sister peeps, like a tiny chicken.

[nuxvomica]

13. My Huckleberry sounds a little like Edward G.

He's got a flat, tinny voice. His brother Tom has a trilling and cooing little angel voice.

[meow2u3]

10. Almost everything my cats say starts with an M

Murp
Mrow
Mrrroooowww

on the other hand, Max's little kitten routine:

EEEEEEE!

(Max is a huge, 16+ pound cat!)

[grasswire]

5. I have read something about that.

The vowel sounds are cats imitating human speech, and used with humans. ME-OW. The chirping and trilling sounds are the cat-to-cat commmunications.

[Ikonoklast]

6. The ferals that we have in the house never meow.

They will trill, grunt, chirp, and growl to each other, but after a certain age, as kittens that have not been socialized around humans, they don't seem to learn how to meow.

All the other kitties that we raised from a very young age will meow when talking to us, but some of them also chirp and trill at us, too.

[TZ]

11. Yeah I've read that too.

However my cats both MEOW at me and chirp and trill at me. Maybe they think I'm some sort of giant hairless cat hybrid...:rofl:

[MilesColtrane]

7. Not all words begin with "M".

My family had a Siamese years ago that had a specific "vet cry" when he knew he was on the way for a check-up.

The closest approximation it can be written in English is, "UuunnnGOWWWWL!"

[BlueIris]

8. Catspeak. If only I were better at it. nt

[nickinSTL]

14. the primary word I recall my cat uttering was...

YEEEOOOOOWWWWW!

Loudly.

He was probably at least part Siamese (he looked like a large medium-haired Siamese).

When he wanted something, that was how he'd ask - and if you didn't respond quickly enough, then he'd bite.

I miss that cat! :)

[redqueen]

15. What's this cat saying?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=964uCtgsDoE

[KamaAina]

16. Hawai'i cats have regionalisms as well

"Meow" comes out as 'oau, which a) was an early word for "cat" in (human) Hawaiian (the modern word is popoki, "dog of the night"), and b) is a homophone of 'owau: "I am"!