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Washington, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

catspeak

I've never heard the girls use too many of these other than the first and last examples, but here's a list of some common kitty language according to a comparative psychologist in the 20's.
* * *
I shall quote a few of these words (in the language of cats - Curator) for the benefit of those individuals who may be moved to communicate with their pets in this fashion.
"Purr-r-r-r-r-r-rieu" means "happy," "mieouw"with a strong emphasis on the first syllable "be-ware," "aelio" is "food" and "alieeo" is water, "par-rierre" is uttered in front of the door and means "open," the numbers begin "aim, hi, zali," "leo" is the head, "tut" the tail," "oolie" the fur, "ptter-bl" is mince-meat and "bleeml-bl" cooked meat. The sentence "mie-ouw, vow, vow, teiow you tiow, wow yow, ts-s-s s-syw," is a mixture of defiance and a curse and much resembles "bold, bad swearing."
Many cats who do not aspire to the gift of language are famous, not because their own behaviour was in any way unique, but because their masters, men of talent, interpreted it so delicately and charmingly.

-- from The modern cat: her mind & manners : an introduction to comparative psychology, by Georgina Stickland Gates (New York: Macmillan, 1928) p.17.

3 comments:

Katnip Lounge said...

I've been cursed, apparently!

curator said...

Oh, me too. Daily. (Looking at YOU, Elizabeth baby.)

parlance said...

I looked after my neighbor's cat the other night, and when she thanked me, I asked what the lashing tip of his tail might have meant. I thought it had been, "Thanks for coming over to my house to bring me inside and give me food."
How wrong I was! She tells me it meant he was in foul mood.

I prefer my reading of his body language.