Do cats understand whatever language their owner speaks?
No. Cats do not understand human language. Even if they were more intelligent they STILL would not understand human language because our language is a species-specific trait. We are wired for it since before birth. Even people with severe retardation have language, not because they are intelligent but because it is a human characteristic. It is part of our evolutionary inheritance. Some other animals can learn to understand and use our language – chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutangs, bottlenose dolphins and possibly a couple of species of parrots ( use and understand, not imitate). Cats CAN learn what individual words are associated with and can develop quite a “vocabulary”. And they are quite sensitive to intonations and seem to understand their significance. They are masters at learning to understand what our “body language” means (to them) as well. But this is not the same as understanding language. The cat did not understand your friend. He may have glared at your friend bec
