This question came up from an enterprising modder who is creating her own Anequina

I have always assumed Alfiq do (even if they are not a playable class) as they are intelligent.

The other option might be that they have innate abilities ...

Does anyone have any info or theories about this?

I would imagine not, since they're quadrupedal and incapable of speech, and I'm fairly certain that spellcasting requires both hand gestures and spoken words.

Innate abilities, on the other hand... probably.

Innate abilities, most assuredly. Magick? Probably not.

There's nothing stipulating that it needs either gestures or words, though granted those are both ways that they can be cast.

This from the usually reliable http://www.imperial-library.info/obbooks/mixed_unit_tactics.shtml:

So either the Dagi or the Alfiq or both are capable of spellcasting, or the Bosmer were high on pipe-grubs again...

Nice find, Dogsbody!

I see no reason why the sorcerous arts could not be adapted for use by quadraqedal spellcasters. As to HOW they go about it, I imagine only the Alfiq could answer that question.

I don't want to anger people here, but I wonder if the various breeds of Khajiit are equally sentient. Are the Alfiq as intelligent as the more humanoid Khajiit; how do the "battlecat" types compare, and so on. But I think overall the Khajiit are presented as all equally intelligent.

MY own feeling is that the various breeds of khajits are all sentients - what amongst them is intelligence, some breeds being better served than others. But probably in comparable scale as what you would find when comparing (for example) the average breton, imperial or orc.

Which of courses dosen't consider individual variations which might stray widely from the racial average.

The silence spell implies that there is a vocal component to magick, but that doesn't mean it has to be a specific language of words. It can just be vocalizations, or even just a means to help convince the mind to channel the magick.

Given Dogsbody's note I could assume that 'silence' is either a generic term applied by humans and mer generally rather than a specific technical term or that the spell affects any sound component. Assuming Alfiq are able to create cat-like sounds (and use them) then that spell would affect them.

I would suppose that a sound component could therefore be a purr, a yowl or a humm - heh, with cat-kind a humm might be a smell So that puts sound in the nature of a focussing medium with the essential framework being created in the mind of the caster - thus insubstantial entities can also cast.