If babbling isn’t the favorite pastime of babies, it’s near the top of the list. While often adorable, babbling might seem like nothing more than pointless noise-making. But nothing could be further from the truth: it’s an essential part of the process of learning how to talk. There are times when a baby is actually trying to tell people something. Whether adults get the memo is hit or miss. It’s the same way with our pets’ vocalizations; sometimes we understand other times we don’t have a clue. Cat noises are especially hard to make sense of. Unless cats really are just asking for food all the time — and maybe they are — all those meows, chirps, growls, and purrs can be deeply mysterious.
This leads us to an interesting question. Could it be that pets have an easier time understanding our babies while at the same time our babies do a better job making sense of animal sounds that we grown-ups do? This idea might seem a little bit “out there.” A baby who hasn’t even mastered human speech is somehow going to be able to talk with cats or dogs? After you see the video posted below, you may start wondering.
As you’ll see, a baby girl and the family’s tabby cat are having what seems to be a very lively conversation. You really start to suspect they’re actually communicating. Babbled questions from the baby receive meowed answers from the cat! One thing that’s especially noteworthy is that the cat doesn’t cut the conversation off after just a few meows. The chit-chat goes on for over a minute. According to the girl’s dad, she and the cat have conversations like this all the time. In fact, they start every day with one!
How did you like this baby’s apparent ability to talk with the cat? Are they really communicating? We’d love to hear what you think in the comments at Facebook. Be sure to like and share!
