I'm not OP but its not so much taught as a just learned thing. I.e. cat meows gets positive attention, cat meows gets food, I look at my cat... I say meow, he meows back, he gets pets.
cats are very trainable, just not as trainable as dogs.
you wanna know why people think cats are evil?
because they think cats don't need to be trained, that they can't be trained.
so they let their cats do whatever they want.
and so they end up with an unruly asshole of a cat.