I mean, it’s great that they’ve done a study, but practically any cat person can tell you this. Mine have a bunch of distinct calls with different contexts: -

I mean, it’s great that they’ve done a study, but practically any cat person can tell you this. Mine have a bunch of distinct calls with different contexts: - Greeting chirrup. Staccato rising chirps. Every time they round a corner and see me. - “Reunification” greeting. Reserved for when I’ve been away overnight. Similar to above, but with higher frequency overtones, longer chirrups. - “I want” - flat toned short meows. Usually expressed at an empty bowl or a closed window. - “lonely” - mournful yowls, long, rising then falling. - “have prey” - similar to “greeting”, but intermixed with longer rising meows - “lost prey” - similar to “lonely” but with a sustained flat tone at the end of each meow - “frustrated by inaccessible prey” - chattering, occasional high flat chirrups They talk to each other, and definitely understand what the other is saying - if one hears “have prey” from outside, it will go out to watch. If one hears the other greeting, it will swiftly appear making the same tones. I talk back to them with whistles matching their patterns, and they absolutely understand. Thing is, it doesn’t seem to be universal, as when they meet other cats they try to talk, and then give up in frustration. It appears to me that there are dialects, and idiosyncratic isolates from cats raised apart from other cats - and they do learn the dialects of others, eventually - each time they spend any extended period with other cats I note new or extended vocalisations. Birds, too. I’ve lived in a forest for years, and they talk - I’ll hear the long-tailed tits making one call, and I’ll look up to see a raptor - or another call, and they’ll be alerting each other to the cats. Oh, and really interestingly, we have a fox who consistently visits and hangs out with the cats - we don’t feed her or anything of the sort, but nor do we shoo her away or show aggression - and she’s learned bits of cat body language and vocalisation - greeting chirps in particular, which she expressed to both me and the cats, and cat-style “I’m relaxed, so should you be” stretching and belly-exposure. The cats accept her as one of their own, and I’ll often find them all just chilling in a little sleepy triangle. Anyway. It’s all apocryphal and likely in no small part me anthropomorphising, but I am absolutely convinced that animals have rudimentary language.