, 1884-04-09
TIE LANGUAGE OF CARS
rhongh Limited az TO wsrds IL is
Copious In Expressfon-A
New YORK Times.

New YorkJTimes.l
A little learning Is q particularly danger
Gus thing in connection with comparative
philology. This was illustrated the other
day by an article in The London News on the
Language of cats. In that article it was as
serted that "the cat has a speech in which all
tho vowels OF the dog are fonnd, with si1
consonants into the bargain-these being m,
n, z, h, y, and fl This assertion, made as ft
is OF cats generally. Is absurdly, untrue. Iii b
true, in part, Of tho tortoise-shell dislect-A
dialect which is confined TO perhaps one
ninth Of the entire cat famiIyAbut even the
tortoise-shell cat does not mako use OF a."
and It Is doubtful Il the tortoise7shen dialect,
except in regions where 1t Il seriously cor
rupted by the brindle patois, the vowel "a"
exists A'IE H,Ht1' III -
The purest of all cat dialects Is tho black
cat dialect, which bears to other cat dialects
thu same relation that Tuscan bears To- tho
provincial dialects Of Italy. There is prac-
ticallY only one dog language, and although
some differences OF pronunciation dis
tinguish the speech of Scotch terriers from
that of Newfoundland dogs these differences
cannot be regarded as dialects Now, the
dog does not make ,fse of "e," and in
nsmuch as all cats except the tortoise-shell
variety make use of all the vowels, it is er-
ropeous to say that the speech of the cat has
-all the vowelsp of the dog" The vowel "e.S
W hich no dog can pronounce, is the most
pronninent vowel In the feline word smeow"
pronounced NOW in Ntortoise7shell. The
writer in Tho London News may DO conf
IDENTIFY challenged to PRODUCE n single dog
capable OF being taught to say smcow.H AA@
Cat uso the six consonnnts above men
TONED, but they also use others. The word
@pzzmeaow,r meaning "Here 1 am y certainly
contains this consonants @p" aud e." oven IL
8e class the final Nv" as a vowel sound.
Again, the consonant IS" appears in the
familiar expression "sha," which is used by
all cats In moments OF excitement, but which
Is too p%rofane to be translated in these cor
urnns SMenowl." meaning 'Iet mo in.7 Is
ond person plural Of the verb meaning ito
giveidinner,' and 1t Enthusiastically contains
the letter -. Tho word "ek, y which is usually
pronounced 30 indistinctly as to be frequently
misunderstood, and means, Al am -ex-
hhusted with the heat" contains Ak" Thus
We sec that tho consonants rs, h, K, |, m, n,
p, 2, and $ all exist in the best cat dialect, and
in no dialect except that OF the tortoise-shell
cats is any one Of these consonants wanting.
The writer In Tho News has evidently no nc
quaintances with any cat dialect, and Inns
probably based his assertions upon those OF
some extremely superficial scholar.
Want of space forbids tho. further consid-
GRAFTON of this Important and Interesting sub
ject. 1t may, however, be added that Prof.
Wilder, who has recently made q profound
study of tho curious tortoise-shell dialect, has
found in it many resemblauces to the Basque,
and is inclined to regard 1t, not as a dialect
but rs a distinct language, in no way related
to tho great Woodsheddo- Backfencian fam.
ily OF cat languages.