Last edited Tue Oct 24, 2023, 06:27 AM - Edit history (1)
that people can decode. I was not suggesting that they do. But cats and some other animals do have some limited receptive language ability. They don't use sounds to communicate that are consistent across their species, with structures like grammar and syntax, as far as anyone currently knows. But that might be due only to biological limits on the ranges of sounds that they can make. They have intent to "say" or communicate something, but without the range of sounds to express themselves in structured language, they use combinations of body language and sounds to get their meaning across to people.
But they do recognize and respond to single and some multiple words spoken to them. They have the ability to comprehend the meaning of some human sounds addressed to them. That's receptive language comprehension. It's limited to concrete, demonstrable words like nouns and verbs. When Ember understands the meaning of a word from me, she responds to the word no matter who says it.
Dogs generally have a greater receptive language capacity than cats. (Or a greater willingness to "admit" that they understand a word.) Anyone who has lived with a border collie can tell you how astonishing their ability to pick up word meanings is, even without attempts to teach them.
I have read animal behaviorists' statements that cats do not use vocal sounds to communicate to each other, that they only try to do it with people because people use sounds. But I love this old video from about 20 years ago.
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