I have two cats that were taken from their sick mother when they were quite young. A year on, the male has never learned how to clean his nose with that paw-wiping motion that they do, and neither one meows. The female usually just opens her mouth and squeaks, and he’s recently started doing it as well. If they had stayed with her, would they have learned how to vocalize more?
Interesting question. I have two 5 year old cats, littermates who were orphaned, and raised by a friend of mine. They ended up being “temporarily fostered” at my house when she lost her home to foreclosure a few years ago (temporarily, yeah right). The boy meows loudly. The girl merely squeaks, unless she’s in the car on the way to the vet, then she sings me the song of her people - the very loud song.
Friend did have several other cats, so boy cat may have learned to meow from them.
I had a kitten once that could only lip sync a meow. I named her Milli after Milli Vanilli
Timely question. I just found five, days-old kittens underneath my backyard deck just yesterday (well actually my dog found them, but I digress). Without question, these fuckers meow! I cannot believe such loud noises come from such tiny creatures! 
But they are certainly meowing and they haven’t even opened their eyes yet.
And on the other side of the coin, dogs can learn how to purr. Or at least, how to fake it.
Yep. One of our cats growing up had been severely abused, and the poor girl had very little sense of smell. This proved problematic when she had a kitten, moved it every couple or three days, and couldn’t smell it to find it. We’d help her find it because we could hear the kitten meowing frantically, even at days old.
I think some cats just don’t meow much. I’ve had one that almost never did, and he lived with his mom until she died when he was several years old.
We’ve got a cat that does the silent meow, too. My theory is that he’s actually meowing at an ultrasonic frequency, but how would I know? When he does manage to make audible sounds they’re very high pitched. His name is Gilmore, but he’s earned the nickname Squeaks.
Meowing is a funny thing. Kittens do it to their mother, and most (but not all) of them will continue to meow to humans as they grow, but stop doing it to other cats. (They may yowl, chirp, hiss or purr to other adult cats, but they don’t usually meow to them.) Meowing and Yowling | ASPCA
So, they don’t have to learn to meow, but some of them learn that meowing gets their humans to do what they want, and keep meowing. If you’re a perfectly attentive cat servant, doing his bidding without a sound cue, it’s possible that your cat never noticed that meowing is how to control you, and so didn’t retain his kitten habit of meowing.
Our deaf cat will occasionally meow. He’s MUCH more likely to yowl or chirp, but the meows come.
No idea if he was born deaf, so not much of a data point.
Having grown up on a farm, with barn cats(mice control) and one “house” cat (the pet), this was true from my observations. Those barn cats would hit and chirp (at birds usually) but I don’t recall them meowing at anyone. The house cat would meow her head off if she wasn’t treated like royalty.
Are they Maine coon cats, by any chance? They are known for not having a normal meow.
I don’t know whether it’s true, but I have been told that cats never meow with each other. Apparently it’s always directed at humans and the behavior is a product of domestication. Presumably as the previous poster suggested they are more likely to meow if they get early reinforcement.
Sorry, I realise this has already been said, I should read the previous posts more carefully before chipping in.
I think it’s about the kitty’s confidence level. I have a house cat that when I got him, he would not meow either. As time has gone on, he has gotten more and more aggressive and loud in his meowing when something isn’t right. I’m not sure if this is because I jump to his every whim when he meows, or because he feels secure in being loud when in my house, knowing nothing will attack him.
How does this explain one and two day-old kittens, who’ve never even been exposed to a human being before, all meowing loudly without provocation?
It doesn’t. Cats wouldn’t have vocal cords and the circuitry in their brains to drive them to create the meow sound unless they had a use for it other than getting kibble from humans. I think adult cats are silent because it lets prey and predators know they are there, but adult cats retain the ability to meow, they just choose not to do it.
Or not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3U0udLH974 They certainly seem to be paying a lot more attention to each other than the unseen camera person.
You aren’t Mike, are you? 
Cats have been domesticated for probably around 10,000 years. Surprisingly complex behaviours can be produced by unconscious artificial selection. Dogs for example have facial expressions much more closely resembling those of humans than do wolves (although they were domesticated much earlier).
I am a Mike, though it’s possible that there’s more than one. Are you just throwing my own professed scepticism back at me?