# Meow

A meow (or miaow or miaou (UK)) is a cat vocalization. Meows are by far the most common vocalizations that domestic cats direct toward humans.

## Quotes

* Meow. We know this is the sound a cat makes. Five thousand years ago, so did the Ancient Egyptians. They just pronounced it “miw,” according to Sir Alan Gardiner, the deceased expert on Egyptian grammar. This is very close to how Mandarin Chinese speakers currently pronounce the word for “cat:” māo … … The consonant-vowel pattern meow may not seem important in our language—it’s just the sound a cat makes—but in Chinese, this sound pattern—spelled “miao”—occurs 16 times by itself, and at least 78 times in conjunction with other characters, according to http://www.mandarintools.com/. The Miao of China—one of the meanings of “miao”—is an ancient people known for their farming and embroidery; the word also means “family, progeny, sprout.” The Oxford English Dictionary does not include a listing for “miao” or “meow.” The closest word is “miaow,” and it means, “Imitative. Similar representations of the cry of a cat (and corresponding nouns and verbs) are very widespread in numerous languages: compare, e.g., German miau, Spanish miau, Russian mjau, Turkish miyav, Finnish miau, Chinese miāo, etc.” Even though OED claims the word is widespread, the earliest date given is 1288. Ancient Egyptian isn’t mentioned. Under “cat” however, OED offers, “History points to Egypt as the earliest home of the domestic cat, and the name is generally sought in the same quarter.” Not discussed is the fact that the Egyptians used the word “miw,” even though Gardiner’s book was published in 1927.
** Jennifer Ball, (2019). "“Meow” Is Just Another Name for “Cat”". Open Journal of Modern Linguistics 09 (05). DOI:10.4236/ojml.2019.95025. (Article ID:94947, 42 pages)
* ... Once cats have used the meow to gain a person's attention, they generally use additional visual or tactile techniques for explaining what is so urgently needed, such as rubbing their head and flanks around our legs and then against the food cupboard, or sitting looking pointedly at the back door.
** Sarah Brown, The Hidden Language of Cats: How They Have Us at Meow. Penguin Random House, Dutton. 2023. p. 72. ISBN 0593186419.
* ... Why can't people figure out what a cat's trying to say? The answer was revealed in a study conducted in England in 2015. Using an approach similar to Nicastro's, the researchers went to people's homes and recorded cats meowing in four different contexts.* Then they played the calls back to listeners to see if they could correctly identify the context of each call. An important difference from Nicastro's study, however, was that people who lived with each cat were included among the listeners. Participants were reasonably proficient when listening to the cat with whom they shared a home, correctly identifying the context sixty percent of the time. By contrast, when hearing an unfamiliar cat, they picked the correct context a paltry twenty-five percent of the time, no better than guessing randomly. These results suggest that each cat has her own specific meows that she uses in different situations, and that people who live with these cats learn to recognize what each meow means. However, these call are cat-specific; there is no universal cat language, with one type of meow proclaiming "I'm hungry" and another indicating "I'm scared." ... *Amusingly, the university's ethics committee would not allow the researchers to brush the cats backward, presumably because it was considered too mean or annoying.
** Jonathan B. Losos, The Cat's Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa. Penguin Random House, Viking Press. 2023. p. 23. ISBN 1984878700.
* " ... Will you meow?' "Yes—and you meow back, if you get a chance. Last time, you keep' me a-meowing around till old Hays went to throwing rocks at me and says 'Dern that cat!' and so I hove a brick through his window—but don't you tell." "I won't. I couldn't meow that night, becuz auntie was watching me, but I'll meow this time. ..."
** Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Harper & Brothers. 1920. p. 59. (1st edition 1876; dialogue between Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, who admits to breaking a window)

## External links

* Encyclopedic article on Meow on Wikipedia
* The dictionary definition of meow on Wiktionary
* (May 10, 2024)"Meows to ATTRACT Cats (Meow Sounds to Attract Cats). Cats Meowing Sound Effects. Kitten Sounds". Jaw-Dropping Facts, YouTube.

## See also

* Animal communication