This is perhaps accurate. Cats rarely meow at other adult cats, but do meow at kittens and kittens meow at adult cats. There is a theory that cats have learned that this feline baby language sounds similar to the noises made by human babies which, being as defenceless and constantly hungry as (though, by several orders of magnitude, less cute than) cat babies, tend to engender nurturing instincts in adult humans. So, when they meow at us, they're hacking our parenting instincts and telling us "I am not the intelligent, independent and highly effective predator with sharp bits at five of my six ends that I appear to be, but am in fact a tiny, helpless baby - so you must give me everything I need."

I suspect this is also why some people, especially control freaks (who at their most extreme become fascists - tellingly, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Thatcher all hated cats, and I bet Trump does too), feel an instinctive distrust of cats. It's also why I love them - you can really respect an animal that goes to those lengths to get what it wants.

An interesting fact about meowing: the way humans write the word is very similar in all languages and, when vocalised, sounds like the noise cats make.

Except in Georgia - unless, that is, Georgian cats say "knavili".