do cats know that we cant understand their purr?

Question: do cats know that we cant understand their purr?
- Keywords:
  attachment,
  cat,
  communication,
  language,
  purr
Asked by kirstenmc to Kevin, Charlotte, Jo, Louise, Valeria on 13 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by aliceeeee, sarahtierney99.
- Kevin Mahon answered on 13 Jun 2012:
  
  I think it’d be a stretch for me to say if I knew if a cat knew that if we knew why it purred!
  
  I don’t think cats purring is contingent on us understanding it, they have been seen to do it in a variety of circumstances. None of the popular current theories regarding purring seem to point that it is an attempt to convey some important information like ‘I’m sick’ or ‘I’m starving’ so us not knowing isn’t to the best of our knowledge, a bad thing for a cat at this moment in time!
  
  We certainly have some interesting theories as to why cats purr, but I don’t think the average domestic cat is up to date on the research!

Question: do cats know that we cant understand their purr?