Copyright

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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Susanne Schötz 2018

Susanne Schötz asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Ebook Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 9780263267518

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

A Note to the Reader

PREFACE: WHY IS THE LANGUAGE OF CATS (STILL) A SECRET?

1 MY FIRST CATS

2 CAT FOR BEGINNERS

3 “MEOW” THE MOST COMMON WORD IN THE LANGUAGE OF CATS

4 “BRRRH, HOW NICE TO SEE YOU!” GREETINGS AND SMALL TALK

5 “GRRRRRR, HSSSSHH, GET AWAY!” ANTIPATHY, REJECTION, DETERRENCE

6 “MEEEOOOWWW, I WANT YOU!” CALLING, COURTSHIP, SEDUCTION

7 “HRRRHRRRR, I AM HAPPY WITH YOU!” HAPPINESS AND SATISFACTION

8 “MEH MEH MEH MEH! I AM GOING TO EAT YOU UP!” CALLS FOR PREY

9 LEARNING TO UNDERSTAND YOUR OWN CAT

10 HUMAN TO CAT—HOW COMMUNICATION SUCCEEDS

11 CAT PROBLEMS IN DAILY LIFE

12 STUDIES AND PROJECTS

13 CURRENT RESEARCH

APPENDIX: AUDIO AND VIDEO EXAMPLES OF SOUNDS PRODUCED IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS

TABLE 2: OVERVIEW OF THE MOST COMMON CAT SOUNDS

TABLES WITH PHONETIC SYMBOLS

TABLE 3: VOWELS

TABLE 4: CONSONANTS

TABLE 5: OTHER PHONETIC SYMBOLS

GLOSSARY—IMPORTANT TECHNICAL TERMS

WORKS CITED AND FURTHER READING

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

About the Publisher

A Note to the Reader

All of the special characters below appear in this ebook. If your e-reader is not displaying these characters you may find this affects your reading enjoyment of the ebook.

Text | Character
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| ɤ
| ø
| ʊ
| ʏ
| ʔ
| ç
| ɕ
| ɡ
| ɦ
| ŋ
| ɹ
| ʀ
| ʂ
| ʃ
| t͡ʃ
| ɥ
| ː
| k̟
| k=
| a͡u
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| m̰
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To Lars, for putting up with my crazy-cat-lady behavior and for loving all of our cats as much as I do.

PREFACE

WHY IS THE LANGUAGE OF CATS (STILL) A SECRET?

It is a fair question. Since this book presents the sounds that cats use in their vocal communication with other cats as well as with us humans and describes them carefully, and even uses sound and video to clarify, the language of cats is actually not a secret anymore, right? And yet, even after my numerous studies of cat sounds, something still seems to elude me, and remains hidden, like a secret. And is not this last little bit of mystery the reason that we continue to investigate, the reason that we want to comprehend everything a little bit more precisely? For me, at least, the answer is a resounding yes.

Cats express themselves vocally differently than humans. We have to begin by observing their behavior closely so that we can learn their vocal communicative signals and come to understand them as complete beings. We have to crack their “secret code.”

We begin by examining the assumption that everyone understands a word in the same way, that everyone defines words identically. But is that really the case? Take the word yes. Does yes always mean yes? Or is it sometimes actually more of a yeah? Or even occasionally a no? The meaning of a word, what the speaker intends when they say something, always depends on the context, as well as on the speaker’s emotional condition or attitude. It’s a good thing that if a word produced by a human speaker is unclear, you can always ask for clarification.

What about foreign languages? Well, if I do not know any Hungarian, for example, I can rely on Hungarian dictionaries and on translations. Hungarian has a grammar, and there are books about the Hungarian language which I can rely on for help. I can take language courses at a community college or a university. I can practice with native speakers.

It is different with cat language. Even if I think that I understand a cat sound correctly and can imitate it somewhat accurately, I can never be 100 percent sure that I have interpreted it correctly, whether I am using it in the right context, and how I might interpret it or even try to translate it into a human language. Cats do not have a language that works like a human language.

Even so, we can approach the vocal language of cats and learn to understand it better. The sounds of animals belong to a kind of communication that depends on the situation or context in which the sounds are uttered. You have to study the circumstances of those utterances very closely before you can begin to recognize patterns, let alone a system. In order to study cat sounds more systematically, we can play our cats prerecorded clips of cat sounds and study their reactions very closely. We can analyze the results and interpret the reasons that a specific sound produces a specific reaction.

These are exactly the kinds of studies I conducted with my cats. Although I am pretty sure that the trilling or cooing with which my cat Kompis greets me every morning is a form of friendly hello, I will never be able to enter his vocalization into a dictionary, as cat language does not have words and sentences with a grammar, with structural rules for how to compose words, phrases and sentences—and what these units mean—as is familiar to us from human language.

What does help, if we want to understand the language of cats, is paying attention to the context in which a cat expresses itself. While human languages ascribe identical or similar meanings to different words (a table is called Tisch in German, bord in Swedish and zhuozi in Mandarin Chinese), cat sounds always seem to be tightly bound to specific situations. One-to-one translation from human language to cat language and vice versa are therefore impossible. We cannot look something up in Cat. One more reason, then, that the language of cats remains a secret.

What is more, we still know very little about the various categories, subcategories and variants of cat sounds. Most human languages also have variants such as dialects and sociolects that are used within a specific group, sometimes defined geographically and sometimes defined sociologically, e.g. through geographical location, profession or age. These linguistic variants can still be understood, translated and described. Cats, too, may have developed something similar to dialects: in the situations where they have been successful with vocal communication, they will probably continue to communicate with such sounds, and can develop multiple variations (or even learn them from other cats or from their humans) in order to communicate their message more clearly. There are therefore similar sounds that can be distinguished through different vowels or different melodic patterns though they appear in the same context.

Every cat develops, in the course of the life they share with their humans, unique sounds that suit the specific relationship and needs for communication. It is highly likely that the cat has identified sounds that will trigger the expected results from their humans or fellow cats more quickly. Another reason that the language of cats remains a secret is that we can neither precisely interpret, exactly learn, nor perfectly describe these sounds. Every cat has its own “secret” language, known only to its trusted human—and even then, only if that human listens closely enough.

Yet there are still clues that enable a more general system of cat sounds. In this book, I present what I have learned from my past studies and my current research project, “Melody in Human–Cat Communication” (Meowsic). I summarize the various kinds of sounds, the situations in which they occur and the existing variations. I also recount my personal experiences in dealing and communicating with cats. Additionally, the book contains a quick introduction to phonetics, so that my linguistic descriptions can be better understood. Maybe some readers will even give my method a try with their own cats at home. It can absolutely lead to surprises. Or at least to better understanding. It will certainly lead to a better relationship.

Even after years of research, there is still a bit of mystery. But that is exactly why we find our cats so fascinating, isn’t it?

1

MY FIRST CATS

Humans and cats: two different species with a common language that bridges the divide between them—is such a thing even possible? Up until now, science has not been able to provide an answer. Yet many cat owners are already persuaded that their own cats can speak. As a cat fancier, I am completely convinced and insist: of course they can speak! But there is also the scientist in me, and she says: I am going to investigate! So it is hardly surprising that I started to examine the thesis “cats have a language” using the scientific method and tools of my discipline, phonetics.

My scientific interest is admittedly directed toward the verbal expressions of cats. Are there “words” that all cats have in common? Can we even call them words? And is there a language that we as humans can understand independently from a cat’s other behavior, something that we as humans can study, understand and apply?

But before we start our scientific investigations, let us get to know our five “subjects,” the five cats with whom my husband and I share our home: Donna, Rocky, Turbo, Vimsan and Kompis. They are the source of our happiness and the reason for my scientific interest.

I am an early riser. Even if I am still sleepy, I get out of bed and make breakfast for the cats. This morning ritual is the first chance every day to talk to my cats and see how they are doing. Like any other ritual, the breakfast ceremony has a structure.

First, I greet Vimsan, who usually sleeps on the couch in our guest room. While I fill her bowl with food, she hurries toward me, her tail held high, nuzzles and rubs against my legs, jumps onto the sink and mews softly, as though she wants to say “Good morning, It’s nice that you are up already. I am hungry.”

“Good morning, sweetheart,” I say. Most of the time, she leaps for joy, nudges my hand with her head and trills. Brrrt. “Thank you.”

The triplets—Turbo, Rocky and Donna—are up next. They stand expectantly in front of the kitchen door and greet me with soft trills. Again, brrrt, but this time in the sense of “Good morning!” Turbo, our gourmand, who is always up for a treat or a meal, jumps straight onto the counter in the kitchen, trills, purrs and rubs his head against my hand while I prepare his food. I speak softly to all three: “Hi, my darlings. It’s great that you are up already. Breakfast will be ready in a second.”

Rocky stands on his hind legs, and lifts himself up with his front paws against my knees, where he drawls a me-aw, which I take to mean “Oh, that smells good, I want some, too!”

Donna springs gracefully onto a kitchen chair, looks at me expectantly and finally produces an impatient, demanding mrhrnaaauuu-hi! Finally, all three of them are in their places and chew eagerly, dedicated to their task.

Kompis has spent the night on his favorite blanket on the footstool in the hall. He stretches and expands to his considerable size, which stands in stark contrast to his bright (with acoustically high resonances) baby meow, mmeeeheee. “Don’t forget about me, I am hungry, too!” When I put his bowl in its place, he rubs his head against my leg and trills softly, “Thanks!” “You’re welcome, my friend,” I answer and gently pet his neck.

Then I go out into the garden, where one of the neighbor’s cats, Graywhite, resides in her new basket in front of the kitchen window. “Good morning, Gray- white,” I say. “Did you sleep well?” When she sees me, she stretches slowly and casually climbs the woodpile with the reasonable expectation that I will put her breakfast on top of it. Graywhite is still very reserved in her behavior with me. I approach her with the necessary caution and try to pet her gently on the forehead. She protests immediately, Mee, mee! “No, I do not want that today.” “Okay, sorry, I just wanted to say good morning,” I say, and go back into the house, where the other cats are waiting for me. The ritual is concluded. All of the cats are satisfied. My day can begin.

The morning ritual with my cats is always interesting. It puts me in a good mood and makes my day more relaxed. Our exchanges, our way of saying “good morning” to one another and of having breakfast together is simply the best way of beginning the day. Even if the procedure always follows the same pattern, the cats continue to surprise me with slight variations. It is always a mixture of friendly and cheerful sounds which vary in their nuances. By now, I can interpret them really well. As a result, I understand my cats better and better.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

You have surely figured it out already. I am a fan of cats—a kattatant, as we say in my language, Swedish. I cannot imagine life without cats. And it has been that way for as long as I can remember.

So I have always looked for, and found, opportunities to get to know cats better, to observe them and to study them. Because I am a phonetician by profession, that is to say, I study the sounds of human speech for a living, I have primarily studied the verbal expressions— the vocalizations—of cats when they interact with other cats as well as with people. The great diversity of different sounds and their nuances is astonishing and differs from cat to cat. The study of this diversity is unending.

And yet there are general patterns in the sounds of almost all the cats I have met. My experience and my discoveries are summarized here and may serve as a kind of phrase book for other cat fanciers. It might help them understand their cats better.

When we understand what our cats are saying better because we are able to listen more precisely, our mutual understanding will be greater. Our relationship to our cats and their relationship to us will be more intense. We will be able to understand and fulfill their needs better and more quickly.

I have loved cats for as long as I can remember. Although we did not have cats at home when I was a child, I asked for one every year, both for Christmas and for my birthday, though I only ever got stuffed animals…

It wasn’t until I was an adult that I was able to invite real, living cats into my home. I got my first feline companions from friends and relatives, who either did not want to or could not keep them anymore.

That is how I made the acquaintance of the friendly black-and-white and slightly stiff-legged tomcat Fox, often referred to as “Fox the Hyper” by his previous owner. His nickname was no coincidence. He was always getting agitated about the smallest little things. But as soon as he arrived at my place and left his carrier to probe the terrain of my two-bedroom apartment, he was friendly, gentle and curious. He purred, tried out the food I had put in his new food bowl, made himself comfortable on my bed—and fell asleep.

It was love at first sight, and we lived happily together for many years. When the day that all animal lovers fear came, I had to take a last trip with my old and very sick friend and have him put to sleep. Although I suffered, a life without cats was unthinkable for me. So my husband, Lars, and I took in “vacation cats” and played cat sitters while the cats’ owners were away.

Among our favorite guests were the Birman females,

Ludmilla and Estrella, who were as elegant as they were distant, as well as the graceful and highly intelligent gray tabby, Kisseson.

The somewhat fearful but very social beautiful fat black male cat Vincent stayed with us two or three times a year for a few years. Because I liked him so much (and because he hated car rides and carriers so much), we often extended his stays with us in that I returned him to his owners much later than planned.

After a few years, he was finally able to come live with us as our roommate. For seven years, we lived together, loved him, took care of him daily, fed him according to dietary recommendations, and injected him with insulin (he had come down with diabetes) twice a day. The closer he came to his end, the more medicine he needed. At the end we had to give him nine different pills twice a day. He hated it. We needed all of our creativity to convince him to swallow them. The trick that finally did it was the treat afterward.

With Vincent sleeping next to me on his blanket on my desk, I studied linguistics and phonetics, and wrote my doctoral thesis. When he passed away in 2010, we were in despair. I suffered as I had years earlier when Fox passed on. My husband, who is also a great cat fancier, swore, “No more cats. Never again.”

Three Cat Kids

“Never again?” Just a few months after Vincent left us, the longing was there again. I started to coax the two neighbor cats—who often passed through our backyard— into our house and fed them treats. I looked at ads for cats that were available for adoption almost every day, and stumbled on a post online about three young black siblings that needed a new home.

They lived in the shed of a nearby community garden, and I was able to convince my husband that we should at least visit them and think about adopting one or two. When we arrived on a cold winter day, the first snowstorm of the season was sweeping through our city. The woman from the local humane society, who had been feeding them every day, had a bad cold. The three little ones were so charming and graceful. We fell for them. But which of the three should we take home with us? And which should we leave in the ice-cold shed? Would we have the heart for it? We tried to simplify the matter by asking the woman from the humane society to decide for us, but she volleyed gracefully: we should take all three home with us, just until they found a home for the others.

The result was already clear on the drive home. “We are keeping all three,” my husband told me. That sealed it. The next day, the three cuddly kittens came home with us.

It was the first time we had had such young kittens at home. Soon, my husband and I felt like the parents of young children. There was always something to do. In addition to the normal feeding, litterbox cleaning and vacuuming (three black cats that frolic and play throughout the house lose a lot of black hair), there was always something that the kittens had knocked over or pulled off a shelf.

Even though we were constantly on the move, we did not regret a thing. Donna, Rocky and Turbo (the woman from the humane society had named them already, though they got a lot of pet names from us as time went on), led us on any number of adventures. We were lucky that we always scraped by in the end.

Once on a cold, rainy evening, when we forgot to close a window upstairs, Donna and Turbo somehow managed to climb onto the roof. Rocky wanted to go after them but we caught him just in time. Hours later we captured the two escapees in a rainy nighttime search-and-rescue operation.

Another time we simply could not find Rocky, who is particularly shy. After hours of searching we finally found him hiding in the fireplace. We spent hours coaxing him out, but did not notice at first that he was not just naturally black. Only after he had left soot marks all over the house did we realize the scale of the catastrophe. And that was not the end of our cat adventures.

Three Become Four

A beautiful big red tomcat, who had not been neutered, often passed through our garden. We just called him “Red.” His reticence did not stop him from marking ouryard as his territory. Logically, anyone whom he identified as a disobedient interloper was chased away. Obviously, he made a great effort to convince the neighbor cats (both neutered females) of his rights. We assumed he had a home. Two years later, we found him injured. A little later, he seemed to be healed. We continued to assume that someone took care of him. Then he seemed to be doing worse again. This time it did not seem like anyone was caring for him.

We packed him up and took him to the vet, but it was too late; the injuries were too serious. Plus, he had developed a tumor. The vet had to put him to sleep. We were in despair. Why had we not seen that he was homeless? Why had we waited so long before we took him to the veterinarian? It was a hard blow for me. I swore to myself that I would never wait again. I would take any cat that seemed to be sick or injured straight to the vet, without wasting time figuring out who the owner was. I had not listened to him, I had not understood him.

A little while later, I built a cat flap for the neighbor’s cats, so that they could come warm themselves in our basement in the winter. I filled the small heated room in our basement with food, blankets and water. The next morning, I went to see whether Black-and-White and Graywhite had been to their new sanctuary and discovered their food, but when I went down to the basement, I found a surprise. A totally unfamiliar small gray tabby cat had made herself comfortable on the windowsill and stared at me, her big dark eyes filled with fear and curiosity.

I did not know what to do—I had to get to work. Maybe the cat had just stopped by for a visit. But when I went back to the basement after work, she was still there. I was able to pet her cautiously, and when I did, I discovered a serious large wound on her right hind leg. The whole leg was one large open wound. The fur had been almost totally ripped away and hung on in strips. It was already infected and looked terrible. To the vet! We were lucky to get an appointment early the next morning. The treatment lasted the whole day. Luckily, nothing was broken. The wound could not be stitched; too much fur and skin were gone. One could only hope that the wound would heal itself.

We called the police and put ads looking for the cat’s owner in the paper and on the web. Everyone who got in touch went away disappointed. She was not their cat. In the meanwhile, we had given her a name. “Vimsan,” Swedish for bum-wiggler, because her rear end shook with every step she took, a clear consequence of her injury.

Vimsan is a great cat—but only when she wants to be. She likes to play and cavort with us, but she cannot stand other cats. She likes to lie on our laps and cuddle, but otherwise hates being touched. She never ever wants to be picked up, and if you do anyway, she will bite lickety-split. But we still love this small striped gray-brown cat with the big scar on her leg and the too-short tail (she must have lost the tip in an earlier life).

Four Become Five

Vimsan often got into fights with other cats in our neighborhood. Black-and-White and Graywhite were indubitably among her enemies. When a young black tomcat with white paws and a white chest and belly showed up in our garden sometime in the winter, there was a fight almost every day. The young unneutered tomcat was extremely interested in Vimsan, but she did not want anything to do with him. There were fights high up in our apple tree, in our hedge and on our lawn. One day, the newcomer showed up with large wounds on his cheeks that just would not heal. He did not seem to have a home. We took him to the vet, cleaned and treated his wounds for several weeks, and looked for his owner. But nobody responded to our ads.

The cat had become a good friend by then. He liked being with us while we worked in the garden or drank a coffee outside. We called him “Kompis” (Swedish for buddy or friend). And—you guessed it—we kept him. By now his wounds have healed and he has gotten a bit fat, but we love him just the way he is.

Although he is our biggest cat, he has the smallest baby voice, it is even higher in pitch (melody) than the voice of our smallest, Vimsan.

With that, it was decided: our family of five cats is complete with Kompis.

CATS AND PHONETICS

I am a phonetician by profession. I do research and teach at Lund University, in the very south of Sweden. Phonetics, my area of expertise, studies the sounds of human speech. As part of my research, I ask the following questions: How are these sounds produced, and how do they differ from each other (acoustically or auditorily)? I analyze the spectral characteristics (how the sound energy is spread across all frequencies) as well as the prosody (the melody, rhythm and dynamics of speech) in different words, utterances, dialects and languages. Among the hazards of my professions is a tendency to listen more to how something is said than what is being said.

That is how it is with human speech and, as a cat fancier, it is no surprise that I began to listen to the phonetic properties of cat sounds as well. I started to ask myself what vowels were present in a meow. How does the pitch or melody change in the meows of my cats when they are asking me to play with them? And does the melody change in different situations or contexts, such as when they want to be let out into the garden or when they have hidden inside a closet and I accidentally closed the door?

I still remember how I first noticed that my cats meowed differently when they were asking for food at home and when they were in the carrier and on the way to the vet. The melody as well as the vowel sounds of the meows sounded completely different. How could that be? Can it be coincidence? Do cats vary their meows instinctively, or do they learn the different nuances of vowels and melodies and how to use them in different contexts or situations? Could it even be that cats have learned to deliberately use different sounds and their variations in different situations?

At that moment, my love of cats and science first came together. I started to record the various sounds that Donna, Rocky and Turbo made and analyzed them using phonetic methods—the same ones I normally use when I investigate human speech. Using my “phonetic ears” I listened closely to the sounds, tried to transcribe them using the symbols of the phonetic alphabet and investigated their different phonetic characteristics. In which high and low frequencies could my cats vary their meows? Which cat sounds are voiced and which are voiceless? Which vowels and consonants can cats produce, and how do they move their mouths—their tongues, lips and jaws—when they produce the different sounds?

I read a lot about the different cat sounds, primarily in scientific books and articles. I found that there was remarkably little phonetic research on cat sounds. I took it upon myself to change this.

CAT SOUNDS: AN OVERVIEW

The scientific investigation of cat sounds is, in itself, nothing new. Charles Darwin wrote about cat sounds. He recognized six or seven different vocalization (or sound) types and was especially interested in purring because it is produced during both inhalation and exhalation.

Marvin R. Clark (1895/2016) goes a step further in his book Pussy and Her Language. He refers to the work of the French natural scientist Alphonse Leon Grimaldi, who had ascertained that the vowels a, e, i, o and u can be used to form almost every word in the language of cats and that the liquid consonants l and r occur in the majority of all utterances. Other consonants, he argued, occur only rarely. If we follow Grimaldi, the language of cats consists of about 600 basic “words,” which are used to form all other “words.” We also learn from Clark’s book that the language of cats bears a strong resemblance to Chinese in that both have only a few words, but those words change meaning depending on pronunciation— especially in relation to the tone (intonation, melody) of the language. Both languages are therefore very pleasant to the ear, almost like music. Modern scientists do not take Grimaldi’s book all that seriously, though some of his descriptions can be accurate.

Mildred Moelk published the first (as far as I know) phonetic study of cat sounds in 1944. She listened very carefully to her own cats and organized their sounds into sixteen phonetic patterns divided into three main categories. She also used a phonetic alphabet to transcribe or write down the different sounds; purring, for example, is given as [ˈhrn-rhn-ˈhrn-rhn…] and meowing becomes [ˈmiɑou:ʔ]. Today, cat sounds are still often divided into the three main classes suggested by Moelk.

1. Sounds produced with a closed mouth, the murmurs (purring, trilling)

2. Sounds produced when the mouth is first opened and then gradually closed (meowing, howling, yowling)

3. Sounds produced with a mouth held tensely open in the same position (growling, snarling, hissing, spitting, chattering, chirping)

Moelk operated on the assumption that the various acoustic patterns in the sounds signaled different messages, for example acknowledgment, bewilderment, request, greeting, demand and complaint.

Jennifer Brown and her colleagues Buchwald, Johnson and Mikolich investigated the sounds of both adult cats and kittens. They found acoustic similarities in various sounds produced in similar behavioral situations, as well as differences in sounds produced in different situations.

Between the 1950s and the 1970s, there were also a number of studies of laboratory cats. Due to the laboratory setting, these studies involved the analysis of unnatural (probably often desperate) sounds that were recorded in the sterile atmosphere of the laboratories where the cats were caged and probably starved before the recording sessions. Luckily, there are now more case studies that were conducted under humane circumstances, often in the private homes of the cats. There are now many scientific studies of cat sounds stemming from behavioral research (ethology) and zoology, as well as an increasing number of linguistic and phonetic studies.

Though there are more recent studies, many descriptions of the sounds of cats continue to refer to Mildred Moelk, her three main categories and her sixteen different sound patterns. I, too, am guided by Moelk in this book and describe most of her sound patterns. On top of those, I also include sounds that were described in other works and sounds which I have recorded and analyzed in my own studies. The categories (sound patterns) are organized according to their phonetic traits or features. Because of the great number of different variations, I have decided to describe only sound patterns that I have personally observed in my own or other cats. I have also recorded the vast majority of these sounds myself and have analyzed them using phonetic methods. I would like to invite you to listen to them yourself and maybe to compare them to the sounds made by your own cat. You will find the relevant links to the individual video and sound examples on my website at http://meowsic.info/catvoc.

In the following pages I will give you a brief overview of the most common cat sounds. A few have two or more names. Books, articles and websites on the topic sometimes use one word and sometimes use another to describe the same sound. Meowing, for example, is also sometimes described as miaowing, and howling is often described as yowling. Because it is likely that these names are used for the same type of sounds, I included the most common name for each sound type first and then included other common terms within brackets. A few examples also include transcriptions using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The individual phonetic symbols are explained in Tables 3, 4 and 5 on pages 260-265. Please do take a look and see if you know some of these sounds from your own cats.

1. Sounds produced with an open mouth

a. The Purr: A very low-pitched, sustained, relatively quiet, regular sound produced during both inhalation and exhalation: [↑hːr-̃ ↑rː̃h-↓hːr-̃ ↑rː̃h] or [↓hːʀ̃ː-↑ʀ̃ːh-↓hːʀː̃-↑ʀ̃ːh]. A cat purrs when it is content, hungry, stressed, in pain, as well as when it gives birth or is dying. Purring probably indicates something more like “I am no threat,” “please leave everything as it is,” or “keep on doing what you are doing,” than “I am content.” Mother cats and their young often communicate with purring, probably because it is a quiet sound that is hard for other predators to detect. Purring is also common among some large wild cats—one of the best known is the cheetah named Caine. Many cats can simultaneously purr and trill or meow.

b. The Trill (Chirr, Chirrup, Grunt, Murmur, Coo): A relatively short and often soft sound that is frequently rolled softly on the tongue. Trilling sounds somewhere between a purr and a meow, almost like a voiced rolled r (although sometimes a little harsh): mrrrh, mmmrrrt or brrh, which can be written in phonetic script as [mrː̃ h], [mːʀ̃ːut] or [bʀ̃ː]. A trill is used during friendly approach and greeting, when playing, and sometimes as an acknowledgment or confirmation (which might be interpreted as “yes, got it” or “thanks”). A trill can be varied in pitch and trilling, and has the following subcategories:

i. The Chirrup (Chirr): A more high- pitched trill, often with a tonal rise at the end of the sound.

ii. The Grunt (Murmur): A shorter and more low-pitched trill, often with level or falling tone.

iii. The Murmur (Coo): A soft nasal sound without any trilling or rolling r-sound, which sounds more like a soft [m] or murmuring sound.

It is not unusual for a trill to turn into a meow, thus producing a more complex sound: brrriu [brĩuw], brrmiau [bʀ̃ːmiau] or mrrriau [mhrː̃iauw]. Purring and trilling can also occur together.

2. Sounds made while the mouth is first opening and then closing

a. The Meow Sounds: This is one of the sounds used most frequently with us humans. It has a great number of different meanings and phonetic subcategories. Meowing mostly takes place with an opening mouth that then closes. I have identified the following subcategories based on their phonetic characteristics.

i. The Mew: A very high-pitched meow, often with the vowels [i] , [ɪ] and [e] , some times followed by a [u], i.e. [me], [wi] or [mIu]. Kittens often use this sound to get their mother’s help or attention. Adult cats may mew when they need the attention or help of their humans.

ii. The Squeak: A raspy, nasal, high-pitched and often short mew-like call, often with the vowels [ɛ] or [æ]. A squeak often ends with an open mouth: [wæ], [mɛ] or [ɛu]. Squeaks are often friendly requests for attention.

iii. The Moan: A somewhat dark (with acoustically low resonances) meow, often with the vowels [o] or [u]: i.e. [mou] or [wuæu]. A moan is often used by a cat that is either anxious, stressed or demanding something.

iv. The Meow (Miaow): A sound which often includes a combination of multiple vowels that often, but not always, produces the characteristic [iau] sequence, i.e. the typical meow sound. Meows are often directed at humans in order to gain their attention, and may sound like [miau], [ɛau] or [wαːʊ].

v. The Trill-Meow (Murmur-Meow): A combination of a trill and a meow sound. Often with a rising tone, which may sound like [mʀ̃hŋau] or [whrː̃ au].

b. The Howl (Yowl, Moan, Anger Wail): A long and often repeated sequence of extended vowel sounds, usually produced by gradually opening the mouth wider and closing it again. A howl may consist of a combination of vowels and semivowels, such as [ɪ], [ɨ], [ɤ] or [j], or [aʊ], [ɛʊ], [ɑʊ], [ɔɪ], or [ɑɔ], i.e. [awɔɪɛʊː], [jɪɨɛɑʊw] or [ɪːaʊaʊaʊaʊawawaw] with a rising and falling melody. It is used as a warning signal in aggressive and defensive (agonistic) situations, and is often merged or combined with growling in long sequences with slowly varying melody and loudness.

c. The Mating Call (Mating Cry): A long sequence of meow-like sounds, trill-meows and/or howls produced with an opening and then closing mouth by both female and male cats. The sound sometimes sounds a bit like a human child weeping and crying. Perhaps that is why humans often react instantly to this sound.

3. Sounds that are produced with an open tense mouth are often associated with offensive or defensive aggression, but also with sounds directed at prey

a. The Growl (Snarl): A guttural, harsh, very low- pitched, regularly pulse-modulated sound of usually long length (duration) produced with the mouth slightly open during a slow, steady exhalation. A growl often sounds like a very deep and trilling r: [ɡʀː], [ʀː], or a creaky [ɹ̰ ː] or [ʌ̰ ː]. Growling is used to signal danger or to warn or scare off an enemy, and is often combined, with howling and hissing.

b. The Hiss and The Spit (the more intense variant): A voiceless fricative (noisy) sound often produced with an open mouth with a raised upper lip, visible teeth and an arched tongue, with a hard exhalation. A hiss is often a warning and deterrent sound, but may also be an involuntary reaction to when a cat is surprised by an (apparent) enemy. The cat changes position with a startle and breath is forced rapidly through the slightly open mouth before stopping suddenly: [fːhː], [çː], [ʃː] or [ʂː]. Spitting is more explosive, sometimes with a k- or t-like sound at the beginning of the sound: i.e. [͡ʈʂː], [k͡ h͜͜͜ ː] or [k͡ ʃː], and sometimes a little saliva is even expectorated.

c. The Snarl (Scream, Cry, Pain Shriek): A very loud, harsh and often high-pitched sound produced just before or during active fighting, often with [a], [æ], [au] or [ɛʊ] vowel qualities. A snarl is sometimes used as a final warning, but injured or sick cats may cry when they are in pain.

d. The Chirp and The Chatter (Prey-Directed Sounds): Sounds that are sometimes produced around prey (birds, rodents, insects). A hunting instinct where the cat attempts to imitate the calls of the prey or the killing bite, for example when a bird or an insect catches the attention of the cat. There seem to be several subcategories based on their phonetic characteristics.

i. The Chatter (Cackle, Teeth Chattering): A voiceless, very rapid, stuttering or clicking sequence of sounds produced with the jaws juddering, which produce a crackling k-consonant: [k̟ ⁼ k̟ ⁼ k̟ ⁼ k̟ ⁼ k̟ ⁼ k̟ ⁼ ] or [k k k k k k].

ii. The Chirp: A voiced, short call, said to be mimicking the chirp of a bird or rodent. The pitch is often monotone or falls toward the end: [ʔə]. It is generally repeated in sequences [ʔɛʔɛʔɛ]. Softer, weaker variants have also been observed like soft tweets without any clear initial [ʔ] and with varying vowel quality, for example [wi] or [ɦɛu]. There are also variations where a soft chirp or tweet is prolonged, so that it almost sounds like a tweedle or warble, and with rapid changes in the pitch or melody. These variations are often combined with tremor or quavering: for example [ʔəɛəɥə].

Now, having already read my descriptions of the most important cat sounds, there is no point in reading any farther, or is there? Well, in the chapters ahead I would like to explain a little bit more about the most important cat sounds and above all else, I would like to discuss some of the situations or contexts where they typically occur.

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