In Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, the author, Matt Ridley, refers to Steven Pinker in a chapter on Instinct. He talks about how syntax and general speech rules are instinctive, but vocabulary must be learned. (I'm still confused about how syntax etc. can be instinctual when they're different in all languages, but that's another matter.)

In a chapter on memory he goes on to say that "perhaps even literacy would become innate eventually if illiterate people were at a reproductive disadvantage for long enough." This is mentioned in relation to the fact that the development of dairy farming aided the evolution of lactose tolerance.

What think you?