Cats Grammar - Why Should I Care About Language?

By Eri Hariono

"I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior." ~ Hippolyte Taine

What is Feline (philo)sophy?

I am always amazed on the inter-relations between cats and human. One affected on another and vice versa.

That's how my idea about Feline(philo)sophy came up. Feline(philo)sophy is my unique abbrevaition from feline and philosophy. This is not about how cats think about human. Nor, how human points of view about cats life.

The overture of feline(philo)sophy as feline and philosophy is like intertwining fate between cats and human become lost in bedazzlement. Interface between feline spheres and human world is captivating in diverse ways. Before we get into the crux, let us see the definition behind these words, feline and philosophy. Feline has two different kinds of meaning according to Merriam-Webster OnLine dictionary, relating to, or affecting cats or the cat family and resembling a cat as sleekly graceful, or sly, treacherous, stealthy. Based on history, in a nutshell philosophy means love of wisdom.

Researchers have shown many studies the connection and influence between animal and human. I believe the most interesting animal would be feline. How come? My observation based on the meaning of feline as above mentioned and from the feline characters. Furthermore, many stories, tales, news, quotes, proverbs, jokes and cartoon has been involving feline. The feline has strong affect on human world, from their strategies to survive, its behavior and body language adopted into our language.

What is language? Let's see how an American man defined it.

"Language is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary makers, but is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground"

Noah Webster quotes (American Man of letter and lexicographer, known for his American Spelling Book and his American Dictionary of the English Language. 1758-1843)

The examples of how feline inspire our language are catfight, catwalk, copycat, catnap, catfish and so on. Have you ever wonder why there are many terminologies using "cat" word? Perhaps, never across our mind why there is no such crocodilewalk, or antfight, birdnap and maybe even copyelephant?

For centuries feline has given great significance and strong affect to our daily life, either they are being our companions at home, inspiration, even consider as Goddess in ancient history and our closeness to them has added their characters become more like human. Another research recently shows that feral cats or wild cats only have certain limited emotions and characters, i.e. angry and when hungry always hunting for prey. After cats being domesticated, they have several additional emotions and characters like mischievous, know how to begging for food either they hungry or just being copycat because they want to eat our meals too. They have been observing and study our responses and make use of it in interacting with us for the purpose to achieve their goals. Thus, it is the intertwining fate between cats and human become lost in bedazzlement.

"Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well." - Missy Dizick

Eri Hariono loves to share her deep concern and thoughts on the spiritual connections between cats and people in http://felinesophy.blogspot.com Feel free to use and copy my article here as long as my full name as the original author and my homepage URL remain intact with the article.