Alexandra Sellers

"How to Speak Cat" is a book that targets such a narrow audience that I'm surprised it was ever published, but being part of that audience, I'm glad it was. The conceit throughout is that cats are sentient creatures with a language all their own which, critically, human beings can learn. In fact, humans have their very own place in the grammar of this language, and it is a subservient place.

The theme of the book is that the cat worldview, encoded in their language in a Sapir-Whorf style way, views humans as servants and cats and godly beings. The author is at pains to say this does not reflect actual cat belief, but is rather just a feature of their language and grammar, but she does so with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

The rest is an exercise in constructed language, where consonants are few and tone reigns supreme, where pronouns are restricted to Cat and non-Cat in meaning, where agitation can change the tonal form of a word beyond recognition and give it other, profane meanings. It is a fully featured textbook, with exercises and answers in the back, which makes me wonder if anyone has gone to the effort of learning this language, and if so, what the result was.

Recommended for: Linguists who are also cat lovers/haters.… (meer)