Thread: Little big miracles

We may do some projecting, but as both species, cat and human, are capable of vocalizing things, it is not impossible that one could mimic the other in situations to try and communicate.
At the very minimum there are vocal inflections that some cats I've had have picked up on, and then have learned to use back. Such as "no" meaning a negative desire for a certain situation, however cats can't really make the "n" sound, so it comes out more of an "oh".
After enough time, however, I think they also pick up on a similarity between the languages, and that is the phonetic up-tick in the vocal inflection when a question is asked. As well as the exclamation.

It's more difficult for humans to learn to speak cat, because they have limited phonetic ability compared to us, and so use body language cues, as well as probably pitch variation and shape.
Us humans are easier to mimic, because other than emotion behind words, our words, to the cats, are often repeated. "Good boy/girl", "No", "In?", "out?", their names, etc. do not have to involve body language, but a cat can certainly associate "out" with the humans hand moving to the door handle.

We may project some, yes, but I think that cats live up to their intelligence at times too.