this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
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cats absolutely meow to other cats
From wikipedia
Cats are not domesticated though or not fully domesticated. They are tame.
this is a stupid take especially considering that "tame" usually literally just means domesticated
in fact the first definition for "tame" in every dictionary i've looked up just has the word "domesticated" as the meaning for tame. "domesticate" and "tame" are also indirectly cognates, they both ultimately derive from PIE *dem(h₂), just "domesticate" is Latinate and "tame" is Germanic, but that's more of a fun fact than a relevant indicator of meaning.
we selectively bred cats to fit our wants/needs, they live in our house and pester us to support their lifestyle, what about that isn't domestication
My cats meow at each other sometimes, especially when surprised or trying to pick a fight, but it's very different than how they meow at me. And they seem to favor non verbal cues with each other as well.
Domesticated cats meow much more than wild ones do, since they’ve learned to do it for us. Cat mothers chirp to their kittens. So while yes, they do, the tweet is right; cats meow to get our attention, and they meow at about the same frequency as babies.
The incorrect part about the tweet is that they do it to mimic human infants. They do not. They learned that humans love a little meow meow and it gets them attention, it's confidential that it's similar to babies
My friend had a cat whose meow sounded like an elderly pack-a-day smoker.
Yeah, this implies that every single cat has heard a baby crying. Clearly this is not the case.
Convergent evolution. Their cries naturally mimic the frequencies of human babies. It's not deliberate, but rather there happened to be a creature that lived around humans that worked this way, and now it's a survival trait.
I believed the tweet for a second, but then I remembered all the times I have woken in middle of the night with the gangs of cats outside my street just meowing to each other
Edit: I am wrong, I looked up Yowling and that’s definitely what I heard, not meowing.
Those cats on the street are not meowing, they are yowling. That's a holler to intimidate or to fight, over a territory or hot ladies. That's not a meow for a human to fill the food bowl or give scritches or something else tame and domestic.
it's honestly ever so slightly worrying that people would think yowling and meowing are the same thing, they can be sorta similar sure but yowls literally sound like a human voice and are slightly unnerving because of it.
It's like a parent thinking a baby's laughter and screaming are the same thing, that's.. not a good sign..
Maybe "meow" is cat language for "filthy peasant", so they're using it to insult each other and to address us.
This is the only explanation that makes sense.
/glass of water falls off the table
They don't, they chatter and chirp. But not full meows.
Do they though?
Not generally in the wild. Domesticated cats are much more vocal.