Steven Pinker, is the author of The Language Instinct, and How the Mind Works, both excellent books, (and available in a quality paperback editions, and affordable.)
Matt Ridley, is the former science editor of The Economist, and author of The Red Queen Theory—(which has a subtitle I forget).
Picker holds, with general agreement from many language experts, that human brains are hardwired for certain things... like seeing in stereo, and syntax
There is some evidence newborns don’t, but quickly learn how to resolve the two slightly different images that come into their eyes; they do so by about age 6 months.
And they begin to smile. Previous to that age, they had many ways of recognizing mother (or primary care giver)—earliest, by heart beat, (pre womb, and post,) smell, sound of mother voice, etc. But once children finally resolve stereo vision and visually recognize the care giver, and start to imitate what they see, i.e., they smile!
Likewise, babies are born with innate sense of syntax and grammar.
Children raised in radically mixed language environments, all learn to speak a common language that incorporates vocabulary from home languages.
These creoles, all tend to follow some basic rules, doesn’t matter were they originate. Where do the rules come from? From the innate sense of syntax and grammar that humans seem to posses. One example is to double a word – hot-hot, instead of having comparative and superlative suffixes ( hot, hotter hottest).
Kids do it all the time Goody-goody!
Do all languages follow the same rules? As languages evolve to the rules change—and I am sure there are host of reasons why—maybe they come in contact with a society that has larger vocabulary or they move to a different environment, and need to expand the language to meet different needs.. (nomadic herders might have different language needs than farmers..)
And there are some basics. You have nouns and modifiers... verbs and modifiers... but word order? That’s up for grabs... so some languages have prepostions, and some have postpositions (only they are not called that, there is an other term... No matter.. It’s a word order question.
But I have serious doubts that literacy will evolve. (i.e., the innate sense that abstract symbols can be combined to have a myrid of meanings)
