My cat said "Lara", I said "yes?"

by Lara Whybrow

A couple of days ago my cat was outside my window, and he called me. He said "Lara" and without thinking I replied "yes?". But then I was like "Lara what are you doing replying to your cat, cats don't talk!" 

Or do they?

It isn't the first time my cat has spoken, nor am I the only one who has heard my cat "speak". In fact, do yourself a favour and check out Youtube. You will find tons of videos of animals making remarkably human sounds. I don't think they are just mimicking what they hear because if that were the case wouldn't they find the word "hi" a bit easier to vocalise? And the word "hi" is said far more often than my name. 

My cat has also said "how are you" on a few different occasions. The reason why I used to think it was a funny coincidence was that my cat would make these sounds when trying to cough up a hairball. I used to think that the sounds were due to the coughing until it dawned on me that the cat was probably coughing due to the effort of vocalising and the unfamiliar movement of the vocal cords while trying to speak. 

I hate to refer to the Bible, because so many people instantly shut down the minute they hear that word, but the Bible has a story about a donkey that spoke. It was Balaam's donkey and it's somewhere in Numbers if you want to check it out.