interspecies linguistics &c
Jan. 19th, 2026 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kellan_the_tabbyor, a comment I posted over at Ysabet's & decided to share here, as well, because it made me giggle
I was raised by the husky as much as by my parents, & grew up speaking Dog about as well as English. I slowly learned Housecat as a second language starting in my 20s.
Jasper has had dogs as a special interest basically his whole life, & also spent a lot of time with the local cat colony, so he speaks both Dog & Feral Cat as second languages. (English is also a second language for him; his first is ASL.)
Loiosh (the orange tabby) lived with a couple of Great Pyrenees, & their humans, who are also basically Great Pyrenees, for a couple of weeks after he was orphaned. So his first language was Dog, & that was a lot of how we communicated for a couple years. We've been kinda learning Housecat together. I've learned a lot more of it than he has.
Major Tom (the big grey tabby) was feral before he decided I didn't suck too much. I've learned a lot of Feral Cat from him, & he's learned a lot of Housecat from me. He finds Loiosh to be WEIRD AS HELL but will, sometimes, help him with Cat. He CLAIMS that he won't learn Dog as a matter of principle, & he doesn't SPEAK Dog that I've seen, but he absolutely UNDERSTANDS a fair amount of it.
Remy (the LARGE black dog) is Jasper's but was raised by all of us. So he has Dog as a first language, but started picking up Housecat & Feral Cat at eight weeks. Watching an eighty pound dog assume the meatloaf position, complete with neatly-tucked front paws, is an EXPERIENCE. He's very bad at meowing, but that doesn't stop him from trying.
It's an entire-ass menagerie around here, is what.
I was raised by the husky as much as by my parents, & grew up speaking Dog about as well as English. I slowly learned Housecat as a second language starting in my 20s.
Jasper has had dogs as a special interest basically his whole life, & also spent a lot of time with the local cat colony, so he speaks both Dog & Feral Cat as second languages. (English is also a second language for him; his first is ASL.)
Loiosh (the orange tabby) lived with a couple of Great Pyrenees, & their humans, who are also basically Great Pyrenees, for a couple of weeks after he was orphaned. So his first language was Dog, & that was a lot of how we communicated for a couple years. We've been kinda learning Housecat together. I've learned a lot more of it than he has.
Major Tom (the big grey tabby) was feral before he decided I didn't suck too much. I've learned a lot of Feral Cat from him, & he's learned a lot of Housecat from me. He finds Loiosh to be WEIRD AS HELL but will, sometimes, help him with Cat. He CLAIMS that he won't learn Dog as a matter of principle, & he doesn't SPEAK Dog that I've seen, but he absolutely UNDERSTANDS a fair amount of it.
Remy (the LARGE black dog) is Jasper's but was raised by all of us. So he has Dog as a first language, but started picking up Housecat & Feral Cat at eight weeks. Watching an eighty pound dog assume the meatloaf position, complete with neatly-tucked front paws, is an EXPERIENCE. He's very bad at meowing, but that doesn't stop him from trying.
It's an entire-ass menagerie around here, is what.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-20 01:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-20 02:27 am (UTC)