Help! My cat attacked me b/c I meowed at him...

Just wondering if anyone has ever had this happen...

I was playing w/ my cat as usual and I meowed at him (as I have done w/ all previous kitties). Well, apparently he felt like I was a theat all of a suddern.
He looked at me and started a short series of long meows and then he launched and attacked my leg.

I found this kitty a little over a year ago on a bridge near my place of work. He was about 3 weeks old. He was very lifeless and it appeared he may have been w/ out food and water for a while. After taking him to the vet (he checked out ok), I noticed he had a small puncture wound near his ear.
The vet could not determine what the cause was.

At times, he bites, often w/o cause. He bites my mother the most. I'm not sure if the fact that she is his primary care taker has anything to do with this or not.

I'm looking for any feedback on this kind of behavior.

You scared him - made him think you were a big cat and ?? might attack him, so he got you first! From what you've said, it sounds like he needs some leeway in his learning curve, so be nice to him and give some time for him to figure out his whole new living situation (you included). He obviously didn't get much socialization training from his mother, and is behind on manners, but it's not his fault - he doesn't know better.

It doesn't matter how long a kitty has been deprived or how long they've been taken care of. Until the fright is soothed out of them, they will be jumpy.

In terms of communication, a deprived kitty is like a human raised by wolves. They didn't learn much language, and very little about people.

I've found the best way to teach cats our human language is to talk to them a lot while we are also theatrical and dramatic with our body language. This acts as a sort of translator. Cats are very attuned to our body language. Talking to them does let them pick up the sense of what we are saying, but it also helps us to convey our thoughts.

Cats who are wary when we make a lot of movements are even more deaf to our language, so then we should hold off on the body language. Do it with our voice, instead. Put a lot of tones in your voice; tell them things by singing. Cats like that, no matter how badly we sing.

He doesn't know how to interpret a lot of what you do, and then he gets frightened. Street cats survived by being tough little punks, quick to attack, to keep predators at bay. Once he's certain you are a friend, you will get the benefit of the doubt.

Talk to him. Help him out.