Domestic cats understand the phonetics of their name

In a study it was conclusively found that domestic cats can tell the difference between the phonetics of their name when spoken by people from the phonetics of general sounds and the phonetics of the name of other cats.

We conclude that cats can discriminate the content of human utterances based on phonemic differences.

They also found that domestic cats living in a cat cafe could do something similar but not quite as good as they could not distinguish the sound of their name from the sound of the name of cohabiting cats at the cafe.

My guess is that domestic cats living in a home have a close connection with their owner and their name is said regularly. They are trained to understand the sound of their name. In contrast cats at cafes don't have this advantage. Different people - one-off visitors - say their name in different ways and perhaps they get their name wrong. The 'training' is less intense and clear cut. It is more confusing.

When people say that cats understand their name, it's true to a large extent. However, they don't understand their name as humans understand their own names. Cats understand the sound of their name. It is only the sound, the phonetics which they detect and respond to.

Study: Domestic cats (Felis catus) discriminate their names from other words. Link: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-40616-4

Naming your new son Toby when your recently deceased cat was called Toby

A woman on Reddit asked for advice about naming her son who is yet to be born 'Toby' when her recently deceased elderly cat was named Toby. She loves the name but doesn't want to upset members of the family as they might dislike the association between her cat's name and the proposed name of her son. She is in a quandary over it.

Toby a good name for a cat. Image: MikeB

One responder to her request for advice found the solution I believe. Neit_1146 suggested that she name her son the long version of Toby which is Tobias.

The Baby Centre website says this about the name Toby:

A shortened form of Tobias, from Tobiyah, meaning "God is good" from the Greek towb, meaning "good" and yahweh, the Hebrew name of "God". Pronounced: toh bee. Actor Tobey Maguire is famed for his title role in the "Spiderman" films.

She might adopt the longer version of the shortened version! This would be Tobey as in the actor who played Spiderman.

That should scotch any potential objections from other family members, I hope.

RELATED: Infographic on medieval cat names.

Here are some strange Medieval domestic cat names if you are interested. Completely different. I wonder what we can infer from the difference?

What is the native American word for 'panther'?

Realistically, you can't answer the question in the title. I will tell you why. There are hundreds of different Native American tribes and languages. The native-languages.org website lists the most popular Native American languages of which there are 30. 

These are the most popular but, as mentioned, there are far more. It is simply impractical and I would suggest impossible to find out how these Native Americans used or still do refer to the mountain lion in their own language.

Image: MikeB

I'm going to presume that the word "panther" in this context is a reference to the mountain lion which is better described as the "puma". This is the most scientific term.

The puma has the most names in any case, not including Native American languages, of all the wild cat species. This is a very complicated picture.

Let's take one of the native languages of the Americas: Cree. I have selected them at random. It is spoken by more than 70,000 people across southern Canada and into Montana. It is an Algonquian language apparently. And there are five major Cree dialects. 

The Cree are Canada's largest native group with 200,000 registered members. There are dozens of self-government nations.

The most popular or commonly spoken native language is Quechua. There are approximately 8 million speakers and they live in the Andean region of South America. It is the language of the Inca empire of Peru.

Interestingly, the official name of the mountain lion, as mentioned, the puma, is a word which comes from the Quechua language.

The name puma first appeared in 1609 when Garcilasso de la Vega, the son of a Spanish conquistador and an Incan Princess wrote, "Lions are met with, though they are not so large not so fierce as those of Africa. The Indians call them Puma." 

The AI computer ChatGPT responds to the question in the title as follows:

"The native American word for panther varies among different indigenous cultures. Some common words for panther include "puma" or "cougar" in the Americas, and "mountain lion" in some western tribes. In some Eastern tribes, it's referred to as "catamount." The exact word used for panther can also depend on the specific language and dialect of the indigenous culture."

I thought that it is wasn't very helpful 😎.

Alpaca cat

What is the alpaca cat? Simple answer. This is not about a cat but a name. The alpaca cat was an alternative name for the LaPerm cat. As you probably know, the fur of the alpaca is wavy and spongy. It naturally crimps. It is somewhat like the fur of the LaPerm which, because of a genetic mutation, has an unusual texture, having "a distinctive coat that falls in loose ringlets, reminiscent of the Komondor or Puli dog". The quote comes from Dr. Desmond Morris in his book Cat World. Click this for LaPerm info.

Alpaca and LaPerm. Image: MikeB. LaPerm pic by Helmi Flick.

AITA for adopting a cat that has a penis on his face and naming him Richard?

AITA is an acronym Am I the Asshole and in this instance a man posted the title to this page on the reddit.com website. He tells the world on that high hitting website that he adopted a rescue cat who had been left on the shelf. Nobody wanted to adopt this cat because of the markings on his face and those markings look a little bit like an erect penis. 

AITA for adopting a cat that has a penis on his face and naming him Richard? Photo: Imgur.

The fact that he adopted the cat was a good thing, but he called him Richard knowing full well that he would call him Dick for short. He then asked all the visitors to his reddit.com post whether he was an asshole in doing what he did.

It is interesting to note that the administrators of reddit.com have removed the picture but the headline is still there. The picture is above. Well, I have given this some consideration and I think he has been an asshole. I think he adopted the cat because he wanted to make him a celebrity and in doing so, he could become a minor celebrity himself. He wanted to live vicariously through his cat. A lot of people do that on the Internet; they achieve what I would call 'vicarious celebrity status' through their interesting-looking domestic cat companion.

The first problem is that he rescued the cat for the wrong reasons, in my opinion, but I am speculating and therefore it is not fact. Secondly, he did not have to ask the question on a social media website and he did not have to name him Richard. 

So, he did quite a lot of things which he shouldn't have done and in doing these things he disrespected his cat. He did not insult his cat for obvious reasons, namely that his cat did not know what was going on but that really isn't the point. If a cat owner disrespects their cat, he is doing the opposite to what he should be doing which is respecting the cat because out of respect flows excellent cat caretaking.

I would conclude that he is not ideal cat owner. A really good cat owner would not have done what he has done. Those three errors in judgement, as I would call them, would not have been made. Or if a good cat owner had adopted this cat because he was left on the shelf, they would have simply left it at that and loved him and cared for him without publicising his picture on the Internet and giving him an inappropriate name.

Cat in Heraldry

In heraldry the cat is an emblem of liberty; and rightly so! What better emblem than the independent and free spirited cat to signify freedom? Cats hate to be shut up. As an aside we should think about all the cats, wild and domestic in cages throughout the world. They should not be there. The cat is almost certainly the animal most often adopted by sports teams in one way or another; a sign of respect for the cat that is sadly and ironically abused not that uncommonly.

Many long established families or interrelated families have adopted the cat as their emblem. In Scotland we have the Clan Chattan or Clan of the Cats. This is an ancient clan that was founded, I am informed, at the close of the 13th century - an amalgam of several clans.

The crest is the Scottish wildcat. The Scottish wildcat is a wonderfully fierce cat that is barely hanging on in the UK today (2012). Even 100 years ago it was extinct in all but north Scotland. There are said to be 400 left but some are hybrids as they mate with domestic cats. The last time it was seen in England (and no doubt shot) was in the south west over 110 years ago.

Crest of Clan Chattan

The motto: Touch not the cat bot a glove is slightly amusing and wise at the same time. As mentioned, the Scottish wildcat is famous for its fiercely defensive aggression. In modern English the motto means; don't touch the cat without gloves. You wouldn't get near it! The chief of the clan was called, "Mohr au Chat" - the great wild cat.

The coat of arms of the family Keat of Devonshire is "Argent three cats in pale sable". In heraldry "argent" is the tincture of silver. The cats are meant to represent "mountain cats". They are almost certainly the wild cat of Great Britain now called the Scottish wildcat.

Keat of Devonshire Coat of Arms

It is said that a cat in a coat of arms should be square on showing full face and both ears and eyes. That would seem not to be the case above.

Keats as a family name is also ancient. It dates back to the Anglo Saxon race, well before 1066 A.D. In the United States there are some well known people whose surname is Keats: Ezra Jack Keats and author and John Keats a writer and biographer to name two. The best known Keats is the English poet John Keats (1795-1821).

The English surname Catte or Cat (there are other variations) was created sometime not long after 1066 A.D. It appears to have been developed from nicknames given to people who had the appearance and/or character of a cat. That would seem to be the way many names were started in ancient times.

Sources: Various! Including: Our Cats and all about them ISBN 978-1-84664-096-4, Wikipedia, Celtic Studio.com and Clan of the Cat.

India The Cat

"India the cat" refers to a cat that was "owned" (kept and cared for is better) by ex-president George W. Bush and his wife Laura.

India the cat - photo Paul Morse

The Wikipedia authors say the cat was an American Shorthair cat meaning a purebred cat but India looks more like a random bred cat to me. She was an all black cat. She died in 2009.

The interesting thing about this cat is the name, "India". India is a country as we all know and it appears that a group of Indians living in India objected to the name.

Her middle name incidentally was "Willie". Another strange name as this was a female cat. Willie is positively a male name and nothing but a male name being short for "William".

The name "India" was dreamt up from the name of a baseball player, "El Indio" who played in a team owned by Bush. El Indio, though seems to refer to native Americans who have been called "Red Indians".

The naming process therefore seems a bit of a mess. However, there is a journalist in the UK working for the Times newspaper who is called India Knight. She is Belgium. Her father is Belgium and her mother is Pakistani.

So that sort of proves to me that the name "India" is suitable for someone who has a connection with India or Pakistan.

So, I am not sure why this, I presume, small group of Indians objected to the name of a black cat being India. They felt that it was insult to their nation, it appears.

They must have a low regard for the cat, thinking that linking the name of their country to a cat was an insult. Or perhaps there was an element of racism in the argument as India was black? Not sure. That is a very speculative thought of mine.

There may have been a bit of background animosity present. Perhaps George Bush was unpopular with Indians at the time and they felt this was an arrogant American attack on India, belittling their nation. I can see that.

The problem was that it was a US president who named his cat India. Anyone else can and no one knows or cares but when a US president does it, it is symbolic of something or at least that is what these people appeared to have thought.

Perhaps an Indian living in India might leave a comment to clarify the matter.



From India The Cat to Home Page

Algerian cat

Algerian cat - Abyssinian cat - the same cat - photo by isbye - nice picture isbye and nice cat too.

The name Algerian cat is an old name for the Abyssinian cat. This begs the question why? It is thought that the Abyssinian cat, an ancient breed of cat originates from areas that are near to the Indian Ocean, which is on the east side of Africa. Algeria is located on the northeastern boundary of Africa. This is some 2000 kilometers from the nearest possible country of origin Egypt.

Anyway it seems that at one time it was thought that the Abyssinian could have originated from Algeria or it was just a nice name that evoked the color of the Abyssinian cat.

Algerian cat to the Australian Mist cat