Speaking in Yiddish..

As both cats continue to grow and thrive, I am noticing that the way they communicate remains in the same stage as when they were kittens. As you know, I found Princess and Gabriel at a pet adoption fair at the Tyson's Petco in early December. They were part of a group of five kittens, as pictured here on the right, even though they were not all born of the same mother anyway, because Gabriel was born 3 weeks earlier. These kittens were rescued from what was deemed a "collector's" home... too many cats, apparently and what not, I am really not sure. But they were taken quite young because by the time they were up for adoption they were still only a couple months old. And of course, they were socialized at the foster's home, a woman who is part of the Four Paws organization and who has been fostering cats for a really long time.

Both cats as we all know by now :) took to me like ducks to water, bonding with me almost immediately. Gabriel, especially, even as an hornery kitten that he was, loved to spend lots of time laying on my lap and falling asleep in my arms. This was and still is part of our routine.

But now that both cats have passed the 8th month mark of their lives, they still are not vocal. I have yet to hear a clear "meow" out of either one of them, I mean a clear and loud one. Gabriel still sounds like a kitten the rare times that he 'meows'... The way that they vocallize is mostly through the 'chirping' sound, I'm not sure how else to describe it. I'm thinking of it as the equivalent of speaking in .. "Yiddish"! Some sort of ... isolated, "regional", cat-dialect that few cats have ever heard of before... :) ... Seriously, when does a cat never meow normally?

And part of their 'Yiddish' tongue, comes the wild swinging of their tails. They both do that as well, just part of their social time with me; their tail swings from its root back and forth really fast while they vye for my attention and petting. But they do respond to my verbalizations to them; like the other evening, they both came into the bedroom and as I greeted them verbally both their tails went straight up in unison, as they were side by side. That's when I know it's not enough to show affection physically by stroking them... they need to hear something from me as well, it's like a reassurance. Princess had started purring as a really tiny kitten that she was the minute I started 'talking' to her, not just by petting her.

I'm just wondering at this point: Are they ever going to come out of this strange dialect? Are they ever gonna meow normally? ... Is this 'Yiddish' tongue a kind of gypsy cat-dialect? A remnant of their feral-like beginnings?

:)