Steve downloaded "cat sounds" onto his phone.
So he can "talk" with Merrill.

..thats hilarious and kind of adorable

Steve continues to be a cute, if weird, man

not like i'm one to talk anyway, i have conversations with my cats all the time. Both ones where i speak human at them like they can understand me, and ones where i mimic the mews they make

Well, his reasoning is "his English isn't very good." And Merrill is clearly bilingual in only "Cat" and "English"

Or those were his reasons when I asked

...lmfao

I MEAN THERE'S LOGIC THERE BUT ALSO Steve, buddy, no...

I mean, scientifically speaking

noooo it's cute

Merrill is trilingual in Cat, English, and a pidgin third language between the two

Call it Canglish

Cat is a language of body-poses, tail-posture, scenting and subvocalization, most of which happens outside human sensory range. Cats are observed to communicate with each other in very different ways to the way they attempt communication with humans.

So the meowing is the cat's attempt to speak with you, but it's not really a Cat-to-Cat type of communication

English is certainly the least fluent of the options on offer, though.

so

i am with steve

at least hes trying to get to the Canglish stage

I stand corrected

I should invest in this cat sound app

Domestic cats are cool because they are, in absence of human intervention, a social species. So they do have more complicated modes of communication between one another in ways that, for example, mountain lions do not.

if you believe a cat is attempting to communicate with you, it probably is; you are part of its colony, and it would reasonably expect you to fulfill certain roles. For example, one reason why cats are so chill about humans handling their babies is thought to be because unkept/feral cat colonies tend to raise babies communally.

those are your babies too, in mama cat's mind

probably why cats are so interested in human babies

One of us