Do you think cats converse?

[lljkk]

A human baby will engage in taking turns in a conversation.
When DCat meows & I meow back & he meows again... is he conversing or is he just responding to each meow as a bit of brand new stimulus (no continuity).

A human baby will converse back if I make talk to it, just b/c they like conversation. A human might try to carry on the conversation stopped 10 minutes ago.

A cat only seems to converse back if it wants to be fed!

Ours is trying to tell us something going by the aggrieved tones & wide eyed looks.

If I miaow back I get a look

One of mine is always chatting on. Usually means treats or a hug is required.

I thought you meant with each other, as in plotting.

Mine chatters angrily if I meow back at her.
I assume I've just called her something incredibly rude.

Mine plays “boo” and miaows while I am hidden - it’s v cute!

One of mine absolutely has lots and lots of interesting stuff to tell me. Sometimes there's almost a tone of "And you'll never guess what happened next".

My cat script is similar to Audrey 2 in Little Shop of Horrors "Feed me, Feed me NOW!"

Oh yes. He never shuts up. If I say his name he replies, and he says mama which is pretty cute

Cats know a lot more than they are letting on, but I don't think they have good language skills. They don't seem to be able to recognise individual sounds in language like an infant can, but their emotional intelligence is very good.

They seem to do 'turn taking' in conversation, but it doesn't seem to get much more complicated than that. I think their skills are elsewhere.

Mine have only recently started to talk out loud when I'm around, but they definitely have conversations with each other and me (rarely all 3 of us at the same time though).

I read somewhere that cats only meow to kittens and humans, to other adult cats they tend to squeak and chatter.

Apparently they meow to kittens because kittens are hard of hearing.

I think that cats see humans as big, stupid, bald, kittens.

No wonder they judge us.

I ❤️ cats.

Hell yeah!

But to answer your actual question, mine did miaow back if I miaowed at them (can’t believe I just typed that), and it wasn’t only when food was involved, but one of them used to put her paw over my mouth when I did it, as if she didn’t like it, strange but cute.

My car chirrups and whitters to have conversions. She only miaows for food, or to endlessly go through doors

Mine definitely had a range of expressions. She had a specific "here I am!" meiow when she entered a room, there was a quite abrupt, low "hurry up" meiow when she was waiting for her food, a gentle chirruping when she was happy... And we did the meiowing back and forth too. She was very chatty!

I came on here to see a cat in converse and I am not disappointed!

Judas-our cats look really similar, have a look at my thread "My cat's got really clingy' to see a pic of my boy.

My kittens talk to each other all the time. They like to be together so they have these cute little 'where are you?' 'I'm over here you idiot' sort of conversations. They sound like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park.

I've hardly heard them miaow yet!

My cat understood English. 'Mairh' meant yes. I miss him. He was a lovely boy. He died three years ago. One of our current cats is very chatty. He has a particular whiny, loud meow that is his 'hurry up stupid' meow.

My cats call out when they come in if they cannot see anyone. We also have the Miaowing conversations, with occasional horrified looks, mostly from dh tbh.... and idiotcat will come in and tell us all the things he has been doing, he also ignores his sister...she will miaow about the house looking for him and is hugely cross if he doesn't answer!

My first cat was hugely conversational...lots of tone and involvement, to and fro, he was a black and white cat though and I know they are all a bit strange!

My favourite noise is the little prupping sound cats makes sometimes...like a noise of surprise!

Oh and idiot cat makes a lion noise! That deep huffy ouuff grunt you get on wildlife programmes from the big butch lion...he does a perfectly scaled down to his size version!