Different phonetic perception due to different languages. Babies can differentiate do with dõ whereas adults may only be able to perceive do. It's because we're growing to simplify, group, and associates things to make it easier to use and manage. Btw my own perception make me perceive it as eee or eoo sometimes ends with ng.
One of my family cats goes Ma or Maaaaw Second one more like Miaaa or Miyaaaa Third one is usually silent, or like M... cut short sound , unless you upset her then she is first into scratching then thinks and goes pshhhh and runs away. Ok now I miss them, haven’t been at my parent’s for a while....
Don't own a cat, but really, I only heard cat "Meow/Miao/Maow/etc" all the time. So Japanese cats are really like Aliens with "Nyaa~~".
Actually I believe domesticated cats sound relatively the same regardless of region. The difference comes from the human hearing the meow, not the actual cat. To explain you need to know that different spoken languages utilize different sounds, at birth we can hear and vocalize all of these sounds. As we get older though our brains begin to specialize, and we lose the ability to make, or even hear sounds used by languages not our own. For example for English speakers you might notice that Japanese often have trouble with the R and L sounds. That is because to them there is literally no difference, both sound the same. Like how a dog cannot see a difference between the colors red and green, they just see yellow.
"Nyaa" "Miawww" 'Purr" "Meow" "Nyiuuu" "Ngeong" "Yonk" "Mjaw" "Meou" "Miuuu" "Ngang" <---- mostly i heard this one in my head
I've seen "mew" for kittens/when cats want to be cute, "meow" and "mrow" in America, and one cat who went "mao" in China.
Btw. the cat of my mother sounds like "ug, ug, ug, ug, ahhhh, ug, ug, ug, ug, ahhhh", if it (he) vomits into your shoes.
Ai-chan find that 'nyaa' grabs their attention. 'Meow' makes them feel weird. 'Mrau' makes them more willing to make friends. 'Rawr' tells them you're pissed. 'Ngrauuu' tells them you're horny and that makes them horny too. Ai-chan can't count how many times Ai-chan almost laughed when Ai-chan make 'nyaa' sound and the cats suddenly turn around to find where the sound came from, finding no other cat but themselves.