Echoing Felish

[jducoeur]

So a common habit in our house is that, when the cats speak directly to us (as in, "Hey, I hear the weathercaster's voice, which means that it's supper time!"), we tend to respond back as precisely as possible, in both language and tone. Yes, it's geeky, but hey -- when you have two language experts in the house, you might as well avail yourself of the opportunity to learn the tongue, and distinguish the subtleties between "miaow", "meh", and "meeroaw!". (Not to mention the various intonations of hissing.)

Anyway, I have found myself pondering: when we do this, are they at all impressed by our attempt to learn a little bit of their speech? Or do they, more likely, simply regard us as ungainly parrots with can openers? Are we being trained in the foulest of feline language, to embarass us if we ever find ourselves in proper feline company?

-- Justin
Who, y'know, wonders about these things in the middle of the night...

Comments

[tpau]

or you know, they are just dumb animals who make the only noise their poor vocal cords allow, because they are jsut not as developeed as we humans are? one may never know... wait, no, i already know :)

[cellio]

I'm betting on "parrots with can openers", based on similar experiences with my cats. :-)

[frozencapybara.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to know I'm not the only lunatic to repeat after cats in an attempt to learn the language. I'd never considered that this might be a ploy to teach me foul cat-speak, though with certain puckish cats, I can see it happening. My usual concern is that I will somehow offend them by repeating after them, either by coming to close to psychotherapy ("Can I have some tuna fish?" "-Can- you have some tuna fish?"), or by unknowingly parroting a dreadful insult ("You stepped on my tail! I hate you!" "I hate you!")

Then again, I have had long conversations with at least one of my parents' cats in this manner, and she still likes me, so I can only assume she doesn't mind too much. Either that, or she's very forgiving, and knows where the food comes from.

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

I've always thought of us as the foreigners who can say "Hello" and "How are you?" by rote but then can't follow through on an actual intelligent conversation. I know what feline profanity sounds like. Our next door neighbor's cats occasionally come over into our yard and our felines have been very specific in their choice of language. If you truly want to hear trash talk, wait until there's two cats who hate each other on either side of a closed window. They can't actually fight, so the profanity really gets heavy. :