Pay closer attention, they are communicating all the time. We had a cat family of five, and we're down to the last one, a 17 yo. She has an extremely wide vocabulary, and absolutely asks for water, food, snacks, cuddles, etc.

You know when you sit down with food, and they want to get a sniff of it? What is that, if not "Hey, watcha got? Is it good? Can I have some? Just a sniff?" They aren't deep, philosophical questions, but they are still questions.

They are asking questions and communicating all day long, if you only pay attention to them.