Howls, yowls, moans, and wails are long, drawn out, often repeated usually warning signs in response to environmental stressors. Trill-Meow is a blend of trill, or chirrup, chirr, murmur, and meow. Squeaks and moans also fall under the meow heading. Meows are usually reserved for cat-human communication and may be an extension of the kitten “mew” used to solicit attention from the mother cat. Whether meow, miaow, mau, mio, mew, at least 31 different spellings cited, the sound fits the vowel patterns. Meow is a multipurpose vocalization that can be a request, demand, greeting, announcement, or objection. Some sounds are combined, creating more complex vocalizations. Trills, chirrups, murmurs, churrs and grunts are friendly greetings, a cross between a purr and meow rolled on the tongue and often ending in a high-pitched tone, like a question. Purring is associated with a content, happy cat but cats may also purr when hungry, nervous, fearful or stressed, in pain, giving birth, or dying. Purr is a vibration of the vocal cords during inhalation and exhalation. She further identified 16 phonetic patterns including refusal, demand, complaint, bewilderment, and acknowledgment. Moelk split the three categories into four murmur patterns, six vowel patterns and six strained-intensity patterns. Cat vocal sounds are separated into three categories: (1) closed mouth, (2) the mouth is open and gradually closes, and (3) mouth tensely held open in the same position. Researcher Mildred Moelk’s 1944 in-depth phonetic study of feline vocalizations gives us the extensive cat vocabulary. “I tend to lump vocalizations into several categories, although there are variations within each group.” “There is some disagreement as to how many vocalizations cats use, and this all depends on whether you’re a “lumper” or a “splitter” in terms of classifying vocalizations,” says Marci Koski, Ph.D., Certified Feline Behavior and Training Consultant and Certified Fear Free Animal Trainer. The sparse number of studies about feline vocalizations indicate that feline sounds range from a handful to 20ish, or more, so it’s difficult to pin down an exact number. That means the 600 million worldwide pet cats make the same sounds but with personalized nuances, making them masters of persuasion. With over 10,000 years of domestication under their collars, cats have learned to fine-tune their vocalizations to their individual household to best get what they want. Many of their vocalizations are not only reserved for us humans but are specialized to get what they want when they want it, which is usually, food, attention, or access to a different area. Where feline vocalization excels is cat-to-human communications. Cat-to-cat vocalization is generally reserved for mother/kitten interaction, mating partners, and potential adversaries, with specialized vocalization for each interaction. When communicating with other cats, vocalization is used less often than other communication forms. House cats are also more vocal than their wild cousin, Felis silvestris lybica. The vocal repertoire of the domestic cat is considered more extensive, developed, and complex than any other member of the carnivore family, which may be explained by their social organization, nocturnal activity, and long period of time spent between the momcat and her kittens. Cats vocalize to express their mood, emotions, and physical wellbeing. Cat ChatĬats use a variety of communication systems that include scent, body language, touch, sight, and vocalizations. He grunts when jumping up or down, makes happy nom-nom-nom noises when eating, hums when digging in the litter box, murmurs when settling in for sleep, and has heart-melting purrs. Should I ignore his appeals he yells, “ ME-NOW!” One vocalization I’ve learned not to ignore is his low-pitched bellyache “ow-w-w, ow-w-w, ow-w-w” which means urp is imminent. He gives a friendly “mrrp” for a greeting or invitation to play, “me-owt” when he’s at the sliding door asking to go out, and a raspy, bordering on obnoxious, “mrne-ow” when insisting on more treats. Of my two cats, Ivan is chattier with an extensive vocal repertoire.
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