The Social Aspect of Catspeak
What cat-inspired language says about us
Meowza hoomans,
Let’s be social in this newsletter. Not that I’d like to indicate that we are not social otherwise, it’s just that this newsletter focuses on the social aspect of language. Language is social: We communicate with each other and socialise with each other (well, sort of, since you are following the Meow Factor and you are reading this newsletter).
And now for a big drumroll, there’s a field of linguistics that looks at the social aspect of language, namely sociolinguistics (see, there’s “social” in the word, too). And within that field, we can ask two questions, namely what language says about people and what people say about language. And it’s the first question we are addressing here. And cats help us with that because cats, too, are social animals, it’s just that they want to keep that side of them secret.
🐈⬛ This month's newletter talks about Catspeak to show you the social function of language
🐈⬛ and gives you the monthly selection of meowlogisms
🌿 Get your catnip ready and enjoy your short trip into the Cativerse.
Catspeak Means Social
How about this? I give you a handful of words and leave you to ponder them on your own: community, identity, status, names, sociolect, cats. So there! You can certainly figure them out.
But that would not be very social from my side, would it? So let’s not do that, let's be social and look at the words in context together.
🐾 Catspeak is the language of a cat community on Bluesky. It is a sociolect (i.e. social dialect) and shows others two things: group membership and identity. Catspeak is the dialect of a group of cat account holders. And it tells others that it is the cats that do the talking and identifies the user as a cat. Linguistics talks about “identity marker”.
🐾 Catspeak does not really have a name, though. People who take on the identity of their cat have a number of names for it, but there is no official designation. (By the way, it's not LOLspeak, though it is similar)
🐾 We can call Catspeak whatever we like. But by giving Catspeak an official name, we award it some sort of status, too, and also people who use Catspeak have a certain status, namely the status as cats.
Cat'shese, cat/Cat, de langwidge ov de resistens, cate tieping, Cate speek, cat speak/catspeak, Meow-glish, Meowri, Purrsian. Catanese, Kitty talk, ca'atish, pussytongue (but that might get misconstrued) — group members’ answers to “What do you call your language?”
🐾 It is spelling that mostly identifies Catspeak as the sociolect (i.e. the community language) of that cat community. To be seen as part of the community, we’d have to either use Catspeak ourselves or at least show that we understand it.
🐾 Spelling is phonetic and very creative, grammar is non-standard in places. There's no need to worry about typos or grammar. It's all very individual. When we read it, we can hear the cats and their individual voices.
😸The cats in the community are very social.
Cates, do you think "garlick" is an conspasy to denie us tastie hooman foode? Whomst is Carfield and why can I’m not havf lasanyah becus I’m am not the him? — Princess Luna
(Cats, do you think “garlic” is a conspiracy to deny us tasty human food? Who is Garfield and why can I not have lasagna because I am not him.)
A Sample of the Monthly Meowlogisms
Here are some of the meowlogisms and other catspeak collected in the last month. As per linguistic conventions, the meowphemes making the word feline are written in <>.
Some words are easy to guess, others are more difficult. Let me know if you need a solution to what the original word actually is. 😸
pawpawrazzi <paw>
meowsterpiece <meow>
meowdel <meow>
March Meowdness <meow>
catprenewerz <cat> cat entrepreneurs
Catpurrcino <cat> <purr>
Meowlody <meow>
Purrsephone <purr>
furmily <fur>
fameowly <meow>
purrsday <purr> purrsday is both birthday and Thursday. And Thursday can be purrsday and fursday. Birthday can be purrsday and birdieday.
Margareth Scratcher <scratch>
Cattenborough <cat>
For more examples and linguistics with cats, see “Purrieties of Language: How We Talk about Cats Online”
Love it! I've just featured 'meowpheme' as 'neologism of the day' on my Bluesky and linked to this issue. :-)