Could my Cat Speak English?

While listening to my cat’s very limited vocabulary of “meow” I asked her why she couldn’t say anything else. Of course she said, “meow”.

So my question is this: If a cat had a human intellect, would it have the capacity to utilize its vocal cords to make pronunciations of words, or would it still be limited to “meow”?

I suppose it would still be “meow”. A cat’s vocal apparatus is AFAIK not able to utter words, even if the cat had a human intellect; books about development of language usually say the crucial point was the change in human vocal cords, not a development in brainpower. But if you’re cat was really clever, it could probably make up some sort of code in which different versions of sounds a cat can produce allow her to utter thoughts.
Let’s hope the genetics corporations don’t get an idea like this; the TV channels would get crowded by shows of the kind Garfield watches.

It’s not just the vocal cords that enable human speech, it’s the tongue, lips, nasal cavities too.

Even if it had human intellect and vocal cords, my observaton of MY three cats suggests that they would have very little to say:

ME: “The current debate over federal health care funding is very troubling. I am concerned about availability of health services but the cost is very high.”

CHEROKEE THE CAT: “Gimme some food!”

ME: “Perhaps it is time for Canada to consider a private/public hybrid system, such as is the case in almost every other industralized nation.”

THEODORE THE CAT: “I want food, too!”
HAPPYCAT THE CAT: “I’m hungry! Where’s the foo?!”

ME: “I wonder how increased decentralization and provincial control over health spending will affect the universality of health care standards.”

CHEROKEE THE CAT: “Hey! Butthead! Food, now!”
THEODORE THE CAT: “Screw you. I eat first!”
CHEROKEE THE CAT: “Eat this!”
(Fight ensues)
HAPPYCAT THE CAT: “Feed me while they’re fighting!”

Just FYI, ‘vocal cords’ don’t really exist. We actually have vocal folds… muscularized folds of mucous membrane. They are anything but cord-like.

Actually I think your cat * does* speak English.

Mine say ; Meeaau. Not an o in sight.

Sometimes they say trrrrrpp or mac mac mac [not to a hamburger, but to a bird] or HAAARGH when accidently stepped on.

The scratches they make in your leg after that, are silent.

[except by me]

We had a cat whose meows sounded just like a kid hollering “Moooooom!” My mother would come racing through the house, thinking somebody had broken a leg or something, and find the cat looking up at her expectantly. And our cat says, “mac mac mac” to birds, too. Wacky. I wonder if that vocalization has some purpose?

But, as Mangetout says, humans are highly adapted to speech, and at some cost. For example, unlike other primates, we can choke fairly easily because of the shape of our throat, and even the primates most closely related to us cannot mimic human speech. Only crack imitators, like parrots, can reproduce all the sounds of speech–and then by completely different mechanisms than humans use to shape our vocalizations.

It wasn’t a cat but a co-workers dog can growl out “I love you”. It is freaky as hell. She invited me over one day because I kept telling her she was full of shit. But when I got there the dog actually sounded like it was saying I love you. It was weird.

In the comix, there was an episode of Fat Freddy’s Cat where the cat sat by the door and said “Me out! Prowl now!” Fat Freddy said, “If I didn’t know better I could swear the cat is speaking English.”

But hey, all jokes aside, this is straight up—my ex-wife’s cat Nana possessed apparently human intelligence. Over a period of ten years cat and human had bonded so closely that they had a real rapport and communication established.

Once I picked up Nana and distinctly heard her articulate, in English, “Put me down!” I am not making this up.

My cats ask to be put down when I pick them up, too. But they ask nonverbally, by squirming and pressing a forepaw against my nose.

Let’s think about this logically. We form words with sounds, or phonemes. Cats can certainly manage many of the phonemes in English, like:

mmm
rrr
ow
ooo
oh

That gives us some vowels and a few consonants. I bet they could manage other consonants if they knew how to. The “t” sound, for example, can be made simply by exhaling and interrupting the flow of escaping breath.

Cats don’t have larynxes, so they’d have trouble with the voiced consonants. “D,” for example, is the voiced form of “t;” without a larynx a cat can’t make it.

So if cats had human intelligence, I bet they could vocalize English well enough to be understood by someone who’d been listening to them for a long time. They would sound very different from human speakers, though.

I’m trying to get my dog to talk. She doesn’t bark much, but she does have a multi-octave voice, and I have had a few “conversations” with her – I’ll say something, and she’ll mumble some nonsense back that sounds surprisingly like she’s trying to speak.

Cats are smarter than you think. My cats KNOW the vet’s place, and on the way back-especially Noel, who goes so often because of her gum condition, knows when she’s going back-she’s more relaxed.

Fluffy knew when my dad started taking out the ingredients, such as onions and other stuff-like mayo and looking for cans that he was making tuna salad, even if he didn’t even open a single can.

Hm. I speculated once on a feline conlang, involving ronronnative consonants and miaulative vowels… it was fun.

The things which allow humans to speak are quite specialized, and not other animal manages to approximate it particularly well. Some sounds are managable, but your cat will never be able to swing directions or a phone conversation.

Why would a cat want to “Downgrade” to Human Intelligence?

Preep, Mangggg, Roawwwr
rrr rrrrrr rrr

:slight_smile:

As others point out, the lack of animals speaking “human” is about 99% due to their vocal apparatus, 1% intellegence and understanding. Koko and a few other great apes can communicate in sign language quite fluently, and understand english when their handlers talk to them fine. Even though they know the language well, they just can’t speak it. I think a lot of animals would be smart enough to speak english (or chinese, arabic, africans, etc…)if they had the proper equipment… but things like slugs and leeches probly wouldn’t have anything to say. Then again there’s the obvious conclusion that vocal apparatus and intellegence aren’t all that a creature needs to communicate with others. Humans can immitate ALL KINDS of animals sounds, have recording and analysing equipment to boot, and (in our opinions) probably the best brains on the planet… and I doubt there is a single person who can speak “dog” or “cow” or “cat” or “moose” even though we posses the equipment to do it - guess we’re not as smart as we’d like to beleive. About the most sophisticated human-to-animal language vocal communication we can do is drink a big bottle of moonshine and stand in a field yelling SOOOOOEEEEWWWWW!!!:D.

Successful hunters “speak” animal languages all the time with various calls and generally have a pretty good idea of what emotion or intent the sound relates to.

Yes, but that’s not “speaking a language”; that’s imitating sounds to get basic visceral responses, and usually only works when the animals are so pumped up on sex hormones that they’ll follow anything that sounds like a good time or a fight. I can snarl at a dog, hiss at a cat, or whistle at a horny bird and have a fair idea what kind of response I’ll get. I don’t have a clue how to tell a camel to walk over to the tent and fetch me my toothbrush… nor have I (or anyone else) figured out how to verbally explain to the cat why it shouldn’t walk across the keyboard.

Another example… a russian soldier can yell “blaahhh dir ireiue r deufr alker!!!” at me and step into my path as I go through a gate; I can quietly say “sorry, I didn’t know I was trespassing” and walk away. We basically understood each other, but we sure can’t speak each other’s language.

That’s a bit of a stretch. Most of what Koko says could only be called fluent if you believe that all apes communicate with each other in metaphor.

I always treated the notion that Koko could communicate well a bit on the skeptical side. Often, when talking to Koko, she will sign something like:

“Koko angry banana happy smell”

Which her handler will interpret as:

“Koko is angry because she can’t smell bananas which make her happy.”

I am not denying the possibility that Koko can express herself at least somewhat with sign language, but to suggest that she is fluent in it is, at best, a highly optimistic and unlikely outlook IMO.