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1 / A grammatical category is a system of contrasting rows of grammatical forms with similar meanings. Grammatical categories in their complex relations with each other form the core of the grammatical structure of the language. (http://www.langust.ru/rus_gram/rus_gr01.shtml#rg01_04)
2 / In the studied languages, the comparative frequency of 21 characteristics was evaluated, including word order, varieties of sounds, methods of negation formation, and much more. This allowed us to find languages that combine the greatest number of relatively rare characteristics – that is, the most unusual languages on the planet. (http://www.langust.ru/news/28_06_13.shtml)
So, let's first start with what a “grammatical category”is. A grammatical category is a set of forms that express a certain grammatical meaning. A time category, for example (in Russian there are three of them: past, present, and future), or a number category (in Russian there are two of them: singular and plural). A language cannot “obey” a grammatical category; on the contrary, certain grammatical categories can be present or absent in it (for example, in Hungarian and Japanese, the number category is absent, in Armenian – the gender category).
And yet: are there phenomena and patterns that are common to all languages? Yes, there are: for example, all languages have parts of speech (nouns, verbs). Such phenomena are commonly referred to as”language universals”. Some believe that the existence of language universals proves the origin of all the world's languages from one proto-language, or that some basic grammatical structures are genetically programmed in the human mind. These propositions are developed and researched by the so-called “universal grammar”.