Are magical cats (or magical animals in general) capable of speech as an intrinsic quality or do they have to have it instilled in them as a power? I couldn't find any explicit mention of it in RoP:M, but the following quotes make me tend towards it being an intrinsic ability of magical animals.
There is a Power (or Virtue?) in RoP:M called Gift of Speech or something similar. Any magical animal with that Power can speak as a human.
FM
Okay, found the quality. But obviously cats don't have it, so the magical lineages of cats are not capable of speech of their own, right?
Erm... They don't have it as defaut, but a specific individual cat might
The cats' template doesn't include the "Gift of Speech" Quality, but there are a number of ways for Magic Animals to acquire new qualities and certainly some cats could have a Lesser Powers that allow them to speak one of more human tongues...
Another point to consider is that a particular cat may understand human speech but be incapable of speaking herself. Such a cat would have the relevant Language Ability Score, but not have the Gift of Speech Quality.
Consdering that it's a cat, it might also be perfectly capable of speaking in a human language, but can't be bothered to do so :-/
This would still require the Gift of Speech though
Excellent point!