I read once that cats can make something like 33 different sounds. If you’ve had several cats over time you know that some are more vocal than others and some, like our Olivia, can sure come up with a lot of different pitches and tones.
Olivia is actually a quiet cat unless she has something
to say, like, “It’s three o’clock in the afternoon, it’s time for everyone to convene in the living room.” She’ll continue bugging us with her chatter until everyone is where she thinks they should be. Then she’ll take a nap. Well, being the supervisor of her people is hard work.
She has a different tone to let us know she’s hungry. Sometimes she actually eats what we feed her. She uses her voice when she wants us to open a window for her 
so she can feel the air and watch the birds and the cats as well as the neighbors walking by. And sometimes she carries on verbally when she’s bored and she wants to engage in a game with us or just wants petting.
I enjoy my conversations with Olivia. She usually starts it. She’ll chirp what appears to be a greeting. I’ll respond, “I love you, too.” Then the conversations continue with her chirps and peeps and mews. If I respond, she’ll respond in kind. I notice that if I speak 
harshly to her, saying, “No, Olivia, now go away, I have to work.” I’ll get a sassy response. Yes, cats can be sassy.
Then there are the times when we argue. She says, “Come out of the office MEOW and pay attention to me.”
I say, “Get up here in my lap or on my desk and I’ll pet you while I work.” Then the argument begins.
You’ve probably heard at least some of your cat’s sounds—the chattering she does when she sees a bird out the window, the mew-mew sound she makes when she wants her kibbles bowl filled, the meeoooowww she emits when she wants what she wants—outside, petting, a treat, or something else. Cats can cry, sound mournful, complain, banter happily, murmur sweet things while being petted, and snarl, yell, screech, sass—maybe even swear. Some of my favorite sounds are Olivia’s chirps. They sound happy to me.
I saw an ap once that you could use to decipher your cat’s tones. They claimed that you could record the cat and the ap would tell you exactly what she’s saying. I have to wonder, do we really want to know what the cat’s actually telling us?
