A Cat Attracted to Its First Language

[lexico]

I was teaching an English class the other day, and at the end of the class one mother brought some refreshments. I also noticed a cat had followed her in; it purred for attention. The mother said, "His first owner spoke English, so he's attracted to anyone speaking English." She continued, "After about two yrs since we had him, we thought it would have lost its mother tongue, but to our surprise, he immediately responded to any English spoken nearby, so we knew he hadn't forgotten it all." He would check out my back pack, trying to read stuff off by the scent. I thought, what a curious cat ! He was the frinedliest cat I had ever met.
Have you noticed that in animals in a bilingual setting ?

[Limonette]

Great story Lex. That's interesting that the cat was attracted to the language of the previous owner. I don't know of any bilingual animals, but we occasionally see dogs from Germany that they use German words with. I sometimes wonder what my cats think when I put on a foreign movie though, it must sound different to them but I don't know if they think about it much. If they're interested in something, they pick up words almost immediately, like, 'outside' 'tuna' etc. But I'd be very interested to hear about other bilingual animals too.

[Kara_Nari]

I had a freind who had a Rottweiler as a guard dog, and he was trained in German, so that if an intruder would enter the house the dog would attack, but the intruder wouldnt be able to release himself from the dogs grip unless he spoke German.

My friends parents had an adorable little dog Coco, and when they were living in Switzerland their maid was Korean, and trained the dog in korean, however Coco still responded to english as well.

When I was in New Zealand I would sometimes talk to Lola in Japanese, and my japanese friends would too, she was somewhat responsive to it.

[Limonette]

Excellent - now I know all those German classes were not in vain. Could help out in a sticky situation with a guard dog. Who is Lola is she a cat or dog? Maybe I'll teach my cats some Japanese too :)

[Kara_Nari]

Ooh sorry, Lola's a dog. Beautiful English bull terrior, with a heart of gold.
The cats never had much interest in learning another language. It was useless to get the fish to listen to me, but they did have japanese names.
Yes, so if you are ever in NZ and happen to break into a house with a Rottweiler, then you can practice your german )or there might be easier ways to do that haahha)

[Limonette]

Lol yeah Once I had 7 white cloud mountain fish, and I named them after my favorite martial artists.

[Kinsao]

I occasionally talk to my neighbour's cat in Japanese, and she seems to respond quite well...

[Horizon]

Ooh sorry, Lola's a dog. Beautiful English bull terrior, with a heart of gold.
The cats never had much interest in learning another language. It was useless to get the fish to listen to me, but they did have japanese names.
Yes, so if you are ever in NZ and happen to break into a house with a Rottweiler, then you can practice your german )or there might be easier ways to do that haahha)

You...You have a Bull Terrier! Lucky!

...And I'm done now.


As for the original topic, I've never met one, however I wouldn't be very surprised about it if I did.