Chapter XXII: A Comprehensive List of Words

It is not my intention in this mere paper to give a lexicon of the feline language. So short a treatise could not comprise so elaborate a work. Even were the space adequate, I have not, as yet, accumulated the information, because the time devoted to the subject has not been adequate to the labor of investigation, which is, necessarily, intricate and far-reaching. Neither do I propose to mystify the reader by giving that most misleading of all inventions of the linguist, a grammar of the feline language, any more than I intend to inflict a dictionary upon the world. If I succeed in presenting to the reader a comprehensive, or in any appreciable or satisfactory degree comprehensive conception of the Cat language, demonstrating what I know of my own knowledge, after years of investigation, that the Cat has a distinct, simple and fully adequate language, universal for all particular purposes, and intelligible to all felines, as well as to all humanity who will seek to acquire it, I will have accomplished my object for the present. In this paper my desire is to lay the foundation for a larger structure in the future. My greatest desire is to interest the world in this worthy subject and induce investigations by others. I have no wish to be selfishly exclusive. I do not seek any honor or remuneration for my labors and discoveries. My reward will come with the reward to the feline, which must necessarily follow that elevation of the Cat succeeding the recognition of the fact claimed by me.

I have not yet discovered that any naturalist, linguist, philologist or scientist has, thus far, either presented or advocated the theory of the feline language comprehensive enough to be understood by man, but I bear in mind what your great Shakespeare wrote, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreampt of in your philosophy," and allow, without dispute, that all I have written may have been thought out and even printed by some other writer than myself, but it is, at least, new to me, and I think the reader will admit that it is new to him as an entirety. Of course every reader has heard the peculiar cries and expressions of the Cat, and will remember some word or words, and will have no difficulty in following up his or her investigations.

Remembering that mere words form but a very small part of the feline language, I desire to lay particular stress upon the signs which, in the Cat language, are paramount and always intelligible to man, no matter what tongue he may choose to speak or from what part of the world he may come. One of the beauties, as well as one of the advantages of the muscular signs of an expression is that it needs no grammar, no dictionary, no elaborate treatise upon rhetoric, etymology, syntax, prosody or other advantages of belles-lettres, to refine and perfect it. Because of this happy fact, the uneducated man, as we are apt to call those who are ignorant of our acquirements, may express his thoughts as fluently, as correctly and as gracefully as his superiors in knowledge, wealth and refinement. By the sign-language a whole sentence may be expressed better in a fraction of a second than by the word language in a much greater space of time. Therefore, its importance is of inestimable value.

I have already given seventeen of the most important words of the feline language, with their English equivalents, as follows:

Aelio Food.
Lae Milk.
Parriere Open.
Aliloo Water.
Bl Meat.
Ptlee-bl Mouse meat.
Bleeme-bl Cooked meat.
Pad Foot.
Leo Head.
Pro Nail or claw.
Tut Limb.
Papoo Body.
Oolie Fur.
Mi-ouw Beware.
Purrieu Satisfaction or content.
Yow Extermination.
Mieouw Here.