Our Cats Greet Us

Our cats greet us, demand food, complain, and protest vocally, and with experience we know exactly what they are saying.

Different breeds have different verbal habits; some "chirp" more than others, some breeds are almost silent, and Oriental breeds are notoriously loud.

In the 1930s, psychologist Dr. Mildred Moelk defined 16 different cat sounds; Dr. Patricia McKinley ore recently split sounds into 23 categories.

In general, however, feline sounds fall into three types: murmurs, vowels, and high-intensity sounds.