Yes, your kitty is talking to you!
Subtle clues to help you become fluent in feline-ese
I F cats could speak, what might they say? Probably something about how all laser pointers should be thrown into a deep, dark hole. Although cats communicate differently than humans, the animals do have an identifiable language system — something cat owners have no doubt long suspected.
So is it possible to understand your cat? To hear a certain meow and be able to read it as easily as a highway road sign?
That day is still a ways off, but for more clarity, there’s “The Secret Language of Cats: How to Understand Your Cat for a Better, Happier Relationship,” by Susanne Schötz (Hanover Square Press, out Nov. 6). Schötz is a phonetics professor at Sweden’s Lund University. As she listened to cats mew and meow, she began to wonder if the feline language could be studied using similar techniques to those used to analyze human speech.
So Schötz decided to undertake a series of experiments. And she just happened to have the perfect subjects: her own five cats, Donna, Rocky, Turbo, Vimsan and Kompis.
“I think that humans can learn to understand the vocal signals of their cats better just by paying a little bit more attention to them,” the author told The Post.
(Here’s an unscientific hint from this non-cat owner: Most of the time, they’re asking for food.) O NE problem with studying cats is that they are enigmatic. Their job is not to explain to you their mysteries. Their job is to sit quietly on a windowsill in the sun while you wonder whether they’ll even notice when you’re dead. They are not open books, like those loud, slobbery, needy dogs.
That standoffishness is simply their nature. Cats are not pack animals; they are stealthy predators and, as such, they are not expressive of their feelings, especially weakness, Schötz writes.
Another problem is that a researcher can’t exactly lock up a cat in a lab and hope to study its normal sounds. The animal must be observed in its natural habitat.
“Cats usually don’t say anything on command,” she says. “You can’t just hold a microphone to their mouths and ask them to produce a few meows and trills.”
That meant Schötz had to have a microphone and video camera at the ready around her house, hoping to capture the various noises her pets made. In one experiment, she recorded 538 distinct sounds.
Then she set out to characterize those sounds using acoustic analysis. She studied the distribution of frequencies in the noises and measured the intensity, length and fundamental frequency of the melody, along with other characteristics. (Those noises have a very wide range, from around 25 hertz to more than 1,100 hertz.)
Her most surprising finding was “that cats are using such a wide repertoire of different sounds, and that the tone and melody of a cat vocalization variies extremelyl and seems to carry an important part of the message,” she says. “For instance, the more variation in the melody, the more excited or urgent the message seems to be.”
In that way, feline-ese is somewhat similar to Chinese, in that the meaning of the words change on pronunciation, especially when it comes to tone.
“Both languages are, therefore, very pleasant to the ear, almost like music,” Schötz writes.
(Tell that to the guy living next to a bunch of alley cats.)
She stresses that every cat is different and may have developed a personalized form of communication. The way cats communicate may even be shaped by the language its owner speaks. I T should come as no surprise that the most common word in the cat language is “meow.” It seems to be the preferred way our furry friends address us, Schötz writes. Its most common use is to get our attention.
That said, the author found numerous variations of meows beyond the one we’re most familiar with — a rising and falling cry voiced with an open then closing mouth and written as “miau” in
the phonetic alphabet.
There’s also a mew, which is a high-pitched meow created with an open mouth that’s written as “mi,” “wi” or “mu.” It usually indicates isolation or distress.
Trilling is another common sound. It’s often a bright, chirpy noise sounding like a Scottish rolled “r” that’s made with a closed mouth as air flows through the nose. Trilling is used as a greeting between a mother and her young and is also employed as a friendly greeting to a human owner.
Then there are the unfriendly sounds. A growl is a very low snarl produced by a steady exhalation through a slightly open mouth. It registers a frequency between 70 and 100 hertz.
It is, of course, a warning — touch my yarn ball and expect a face full of claw. Deeper, lower sounds are scarier in the animal kingdom because they suggest a larger animal. The larger an animal’s voice-making apparatus (which is to say, the larger the animal), generally the lower the sound. Cats making these sounds appear to be more dangerous.
And then there’s purring, a quiet, sustained humming sound that’s between just 20 and 30 hertz. It’s produced by a rapid twitching of the vocal cords and is among the most pleasant sounds any pet can make.
It’s so soothing that a purring cat may lower blood pressure and have an antidepressant effect in humans. C ATS are born blind and deaf, and purring may be used to help kittens find their mothers. And contrary to what we may think, purring doesn’t simply mean, “I’m happy,” Schötz writes. It’s used in a variety of situations, even occasionally when a cat is distressed, and probably means something closer to: “Keep doing that” or “I am not a threat.”
These are just a few of the sounds the author cataloged, all toward one mission.
“I have learned to listen more carefully to the many phonetic features of my cats’ vocalizations,” Schötz says. “By paying more attention to the phonetic characteristics, as well as to the accompanying context, I think that I am now able to understand my own cats much better.”
One tip: Schötz suggests greeting your cat by getting down on all fours and speaking in a soft, high-pitched voice, which indicates friendliness to the animal.
Or when spending time with them, try purring yourself, or at the very least, speaking in a soft, low tone. Your cat might be less stressed.
If your cat gets involved in a dust-up with another tabby, stand a few feet away and hiss loudly. Schötz found it usually breaks up the fight immediately.
You can use the same move — a sharp “kshhht!” sound — when your cat does something you don’t like. It’s the same noise a disapproving mama cat makes to her kittens. And for those times when your cat is saying something you simply don’t understand?
Try imitating the sound back and see what happens. The animal may give you a clue, looking at the door if it needs to go out or running to its food bowl if it’s hungry.
“When we understand what our cats are saying better because we are able to listen more precisely, our mutual understanding will be greater,” Schötz writes.
“We will be able to understand and fulfill their needs better and more quickly.”
Or, alternatively, you could just get a dog and never be in doubt what they’re thinking.