- published: 02 Oct 2008
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Cat communication is the range of methods by which cats communicate with other cats, humans, and other animals. Communication methods include postures, movement (including "quick, fine" movements not generally perceived by human beings), noises and chemical signals.
The communication methods used by cats have been affected by the domestication process.
Cats vocalize with purrs, growls, hissing and meows. Meows are one of the most widely known cat sounds. In nature, the meow is a sound used by a cat to signal a request to its mother. Adult cats do not meow to each other, and so the meowing to human beings that domesticated cats exhibit is likely partly an extension of the use by kittens of this plaintive meow signal.
The word "meow" is onomatopoeic. Different languages have correspondingly different words for the "nyan" sound, including "miau" (Belarusian, Finnish, Lithuanian, German, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Romanian, Malay and Spanish), "niau" (Ukrainian), "niaou" (νιάου, Greek), "miaou" (French), "nya" (ニャ, Japanese), "miao" (喵, Chinese (Mandarin), Italian), "miav/miao" or "mjav/mjau" (Danish/Norwegian), "mjá" (Icelandic), "ya-ong" (야옹, Korean) and "meo-meo" (Vietnamese).