I would love it if my cat could talk to me.
Sure, he never shuts up, but if he could speak English I’d know why he meows at the same spot at the same time every morning, or what he wants on the occasions when he’s still meowing insistently at me despite the fact that his bowls are full, his box is clean, he’s had his play time, and every possible need and want of his — that I can fathom — has been met.
Most of all, I’d really like to know he understands I’ll be back soon when I go away for a few days, and my (mostly ignored) pleas for him not to attack his long-suffering, way-too-kind sitter.
Alas, Bud cannot speak. No non-human animal has ever demonstrated even basic proficiency in human language. People will point to examples like Koko the Gorilla and Nim Chimpsky, but there’s a reason why funding dried up for that kind of experiment.
It doesn’t work. It never did.
The scientists who end up taking on dual roles as researchers and parents to the animals invariably serve as interpreters, get too close to their subjects and swear that a gorilla pounding shiny buttons for “food tree food submarine” means the ape wants to have a picnic next to the ocean, or “car fly house car star” means she wants to ride a Tesla Roadster to Mars and start a colony with Elon Musk.
Koko, Nim, Chantek and the other apes who were the subjects of decades-long attempts to humanize them — and teach them language in the process — were ultimately not much different than Clever Hans the horse, who was reading subconscious nonverbal cues from his owner and convinced tens of thousands of people that he could do math and understand spoken language.
Hans had scores of experts fooled until the German psychologist Oskar Pfungst figured out how the horse was coming up with the correct answers.
Regardless of which famous example we’re talking about, no animal has ever mastered syntax, and the best that could be said of their proficiency with language, or lack of it, is that they learned they’d get attention and food when they pounded on a talking board or approximated a word in sign language.
Even if non-human primates were able to learn a handful of words by frequently reinforced association with an object, there has never been any evidence that they are actually using the words as language rather than simply understanding “Pushing the button that makes this sound means I get a treat!” (And yes, there is a profound difference. The former reveals the presence of cognitive processes while the latter is a conditioned response.)
Despite decades of intense effort, no animal has ever demonstrated the ability to use human language. At best an animal bangs on a few buttons and people are left to speculate on the intent. Maybe Fluffy likes the way a certain word sounds. Maybe it’s just fun to hammer on buttons the way it’s fun to pop bubble wrap. Most likely, these cats and dogs know that using a talking board is a guaranteed way to get attention, a treat and a head scratch from their caretakers.
Influencers and their talking boards
TikTok, which spawns inane trends with the reliability of an atomic clock, has provided a platform for people who insist their cats and dogs can talk. Using “talking boards” — elaborate set-ups in which words are assigned to their own buttons — they “teach” their cats how to express themselves in English and provide proof in the form of heavily edited, out-of-context clips that require the same sort of creative interpretation pioneered by Penny Patterson, Koko’s caretaker.
I just watched a video in which a woman claims her cat, named after Justin Bieber, was describing an encounter with a coyote by stomping on buttons for “stranger,” “Justin,” “Mike,” and “stranger.”
The woman says she thought Justin was asleep at the time, but now she believes the orange tabby saw the coyote outside and was still stressing about it well into the next day.
While she’s repeating Justin’s “words” back to him, two of her other cats come by and step all over the talking board. I guess whatever they had to say wasn’t important.
Justin’s talking board has 42 buttons, which stresses credulity well beyond the breaking point. More than half of the buttons are used for abstract concepts.
But forget all that for a moment and ask yourself how our own efforts to decode the meow have been going.
Despite our status as intelligent, sapient animals, despite the powerful AI algorithms at our disposal, despite the benefit of being able to digitally record and analyze every utterance, we haven’t come close to a reliable method for interpreting feline vocalizations.
Likewise with dolphins, whale song, corvid calls and the sounds made by other animals at the top of the cognition pyramid.
Mostly, we’re learning we’ve underestimated the complexity of our non-human companions’ inner lives, especially when it comes to the kind of multi-modal communication humans also engage in, but only subconsciously. We say what we want with our mouths, while our eyes, facial expressions and body language say what we’re actually thinking.
Likewise, the meow is an unnatural way for cats to communicate, and it contains only a fraction of the information cats are putting out there. It’s just that we can’t reliably read feline facial expressions, let alone tail, whisker and posture. (Studies have shown most of us, even when we live with cats, don’t get measurably better at this. In fact, we’re often no better than people with limited feline experience, but we think we’re better.)
Putting the burden on our furry friends
If we can’t crack a simple and limited system of vocalizations, aren’t we putting unrealistic expectations on cats? The average person has a vocabulary of tens of thousands of words, yet somehow we expect cats can latch on to an arbitrary number of them, approximate mastery of syntax that has eluded even our closest cousins, and bridge a cognition gap we haven’t been able to bridge ourselves.
It’s all too much.
There’s a simple truth at the heart of this: Cats did not evolve to speak or parse human language, and that’s perfectly fine.
The little ones already meet us more than halfway because they understand we are hopelessly incompetent at reading tail, whisker or body language, and they understand we communicate with vocalizations.
By forgoing their natural methods of communication in favor of ours, cats are already taking on most of the burden in interspecies communication. Asking them to do more than that, to learn many dozens of words and the rudimentary rules of language, seems like laziness, wishful thinking or insanity on our part. Pretending that certain cats are successful is an exercise in the same kind of cynical opportunism that fuels every other desperate attempt by people trying to turn their pets into influencers. People do it because the reward is money and attention.
Worse, it contributes to the spread of misinformation. TikTok’s talking board videos routinely net millions of views, converting a credulous audience into an army of true believers who are convinced that, with just a little effort, their feline pal can shoot the shit with them.
If people want to construct elaborate talking boards in their homes and pretend their cats are expressing themselves in English, who am I to object? It’s not the smartest use of time, but have at it. What I won’t do is participate in the delusion that felines are a few buttons away from being able conversation partners, nor will I pretend these efforts have any relationship to science.
So to the journalists who keep writing credulous stories about these supposedly talking animals: please familiarize yourself with the example of Clever Hans, and please, I beg you to stop promoting these videos as if they’re anything more than wishful thinking. You are doing your readers a disservice for the sake of a few clicks.
Note: Jackson Galaxy isn’t a fan either, saying he’s “got some serious problems” with the talking board trend. Calling it “problematic,” he points out that cats are not only partially domesticated and the only animal species in history to take that step without human prompting, but humans have never selectively bred cats for specific behaviors or to bring out intelligence traits as we have with canines. (Think of sheep dogs or retrievers, who are the products of thousands of years of breeding for well-defined tasks.) There simply hasn’t been a need to breed cats for behavioral traits since the thing humans traditionally valued most about them — their ability to reliably eradicate rodents and protect human foodstuffs — is innate. No one had to teach cats how to hunt or breed them for the task. It’s only in the last two hundred years or so that certain human societies began breeding cats, and they did so for aesthetic attributes like coat patterns. Galaxy also notes that animals do not express emotions the same way humans do. Like monkeys, who “smile” when they’re terrified, felines express joy, anger and fear with their tails, whiskers, ears and body language. It’s not in their nature to tell us they’re happy or scared by padding up to a contraption and hammering on a button.
Top image of “Justin Bieber” the cat credit Sarah Baker.
Pain In The Bud 
It’s just too much & it’s nonsense. It’s another ploy to get us to buy more gadgets from the TikTok shop. We both got our furry boys at the same time & they’re the same age. If I really believed that any of this had any validity or might help Oreo to tell me what he needs I’d be on it, but it’s garbage & IMHO so are the people pushing this across the board. Btw, also a huge fan of Jackson Galaxy! Best to you & Buddy 👣🐾🐾
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I was happy to see Jackson Galaxy address this and cut through the BS, and he makes great points.
And I agree wholeheartedly with you, most of us would jump at the chance to better understand our cats, so of course we’re going to be interested in something like this. It would be great if it worked.
They’re not cheap either. I looked at one of the most popular brands of talking board systems, and they range from $36 for a simple 2-button setup meant for kittens, to $240 for a modular system that is expandable, meaning $240 is only the initial cost.
I also noticed that although they are color-coded, they use colors that cats can’t see/distinguish from other colors. Cats can’t distinguish between red and orange, or purple and yellow, due to having only two types of cone cells.
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I too looked at the prices (Insanity) & I didn’t know Galaxy spoke on it, but I’m glad he did. Happy new year again to both you & Buddy
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When I saw the talking board for cats, I soon deduced that it was nothing more than a gimmick… Then I felt sad when I realized how many people are buying these boards, thinking they will understand what their cat is trying to tell them if the cat happens to rub against a certain button. I feel like I understand what my cat Holly is trying to tell me just fine. All you have to do is tune in to your pet to learn what they’re saying. It’s like people are too self-absorbed to do that, so they need to buy a product that will be the medium between them and their pet.
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Exactly! If you just pay attention to your cat (or dog), rather than idly petting them while staring at a screen, and you make an effort to understand what they are trying to tell you, most of the time you’ll figure it out.
The people promoting talking boards have a financial interest, not only because they earn money from the clicks and traffic, but also because so many of them sell their own versions of the talking boards and buttons.
And for the reasons I laid out in the post, this is not a scientific approach to inter-species communication. At best, it will hamper our attempts to understand our little companions.
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Fuck influencers. I am currently reading an interesting book I found at the library: “The Secret Language of Cats”. Perhaps you and your readers might be interested in giving it a look-see.
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That looks like a good one, and I also want to read “The Cat’s Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa” by evolutionary biologist Jonathan Losos, which has great reviews as well.
I don’t like “influencer culture” either, especially now that so many of them are calling themselves journalists.
A good recent example is the horrific case of the woman who was burned alive on the subway here in New York. Some click-chasing, clout-chasing jackwagon put out a fake name and an AI-generated image of a young woman, and innumerable people spent two weeks reposting it with “Say her name!” all over social media…while the NYPD was still doing forensics and waiting for lab results.
So credulous people somehow believed an anonymously-run social media account, operated by an amateur journalist, somehow had the victim I’D before the police did, and were spreading this misinformation everywhere.
I replied to a few of them, and the general attitude was that the authorities were hiding the victim’s ID for reasons. (Insert conspiracy theory here.)
It wasn’t enough for them that it takes time to do forensics and get lab results, and that police have a responsibility to inform the victim’s family so they don’t learn about their daughter/sister/wife dying by seeing it on TV or on Facebook.
Did the anonymous person behind the X account apologize or even acknowledge they spread misinformation? Of course not. Is that person held to any ethics standards? Of course not. Do the people who amplified the misinformation care about their role? Of course not.
Of course many of the media’s wounds are self-inflicted, especially from a credibility standpoint, and US media in particular is overwhelmingly corporate, but that’s a whole other topic.
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I’ve read that book – lotsa content! All I can say is “I see stupid people.” Everywhere. Meanwhile The Usual Suspects are laughing at us all…
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The cats here say that their thought process is much too sophisticated for humans like me to understand. 🙂
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And that’s the truth. I used to think AI-driven apps like MeowTalk had a good shot at deciphering meaning in vocalizations, but gradually realized that would be like someone trying to decode human speech based on audio clips that capture only one in five syllables, with no context.
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We probably don’t want to know what they think of us anyway
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Glad I missed out on that TikTok talking board thing … Mainly from always missing out on TikTok. There’s alot to be learned about the ways cats actually do communicate, but you have to watch and listen and study … And, I say have fun while you observe, make up dialogue for them if you like; I did that with my “snarky” cat Bud on my blog, and once in awhile in my book, but that’s anthropomorphic story telling, not science. (And sigh, I expect people to realize that, like they would in an old cartoon or a graphic novel, or, in The Kiffness music.) Anyhoo we need to understand the actual behavior of any animals we live with, or near, not some fantasy.
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That’s a good point too. If we’re playing games with talking boards, chances are we’re not actually paying attention to the things that matter, like body language and tail position.
I hear you on the made-up dialog thing, after all I do put a lot of words in Bud’s mouth for humor stories here! Although every cat humor story involving Bud is based off his personality, turned up to 11. He does have loud opinions, he does think he’s a big bad tiger, and he is absolutely sure I exist to serve him.
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Oh yes for sure, your writings about Buddy are exactly what I was talking about in the way of excellent animal “voicing”, but failed to mention. Always based on the actual characters of the individual cats, and cats in general. There’s even a literary precedent in the works of Derik Longdon, British humorist who wrote nonfiction about his cats but gave them an occasional “line”.
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Sure, Ginger boy Justin is adorable and is obviously being used because of his looks to make Moms lots of money and get likes (sickening really). I’m not buying that he’s telling anyone his thoughts because he’s a Ginger! We all know that the Gingers of the world all share one braincell. I know. I’ve got one and he’s never gotten to use it. He’s as dumb as a box of rocks. The only exception are the girls. Girl Gingers are exempt because they’re pretty rare and because they’re girls. Duh! 🤣
It doesn’t surprise me one bit that people are buying into this. In the last 40 years, the world has become dumber, lazier and more self centered. I’ve watched it happen. To friends, family, and the world as a whole All these people that used to be intelligent beings are now just idiots drinking the cool-aid. I mean, look at the rise of Trump and his ilk all over the world. They believe the bullshit because it’s easier than actually getting off their asses and doing any kind of research to find out if things are actually real or not. For F’s sake, these are the same people who are ordering DoorDash for ONE straw and creamy ranch sauce packets from Mickey D’s to be delivered to their door. And yes. That was the actual order. You can’t make this shit up. Here’s the link. It’s an interesting and infuriating read for sure. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/12/monster-food-delivery-customers-get-your-own-damn-food/.
I don’t know if I’d ever want to know what my cats are thinking. No, that’s not totally true. The only one I’d like to be able to know what he’s thinking is Meow Meow. Since he has no sight or hearing, it makes it really hard to understand what he wants or needs. I would love to be able to make his life better by knowing what he really wants or feels because I feel like I’m getting it wrong most of the time.
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I have brainwashed siblings who will believe anything tRump says. God in chief is innocent of everything. Happy my parents are dead. Funny you mentioned the orange messiah because i told my sister not to mention the pos in my house or i will call her everything in the book. Every family seems to have one.
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When my FIL passed, he left all his electronics to my husband. I ended up with his apple laptop. I found Breibart, newsmax, and a bunch of other right wing sites on it. Couldn’t get that shit off of it fast enough!
My husband’s sisters, his BIL and niece are all drinking the cool-aid. My husband, myself and my MIL couldn’t believe how these smart. educated people could be so clueless and stupid. It’s one thing to have differing opinions, I can deal with that. But when the moron you think is God is actively trying to ruin this country and aiming to push the middle class even farther into poverty, I really don’t care what your thoughts are.
My side of the fam, it’s my middle brother. He’s been an ass for a long time. My younger bro and I have nothing to do with him, so it doesn’t matter. My Dad’s Southern fam has a few idiots there too, but for the most part, they lean the same way I do. That was a really nice surprise.
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I will say it again. HUMANS ARE THE DUMBEST ANIMAL.
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