Saints Talk: Dr Cat Hobaiter The Language of Life

The Development team present the next installment in their Saints Talk online lecture series with Dr Cat Hobaiter -- a field primatologist at the University -- will talk about The Language of Life.

Language is the most powerful social tool any species has evolved -- we can use it to share any idea we can think of with the minds of those around us: from poetry, Shakespeare, and physics, to internet memes, it underpins what defines us as a species. But despite centuries of thought and study we still have very little idea of how and why language evolved.

Dr Hobaiter has spent 15 years living and working with wild apes in the rainforests and mountains of Uganda. Using her studies of ape communication and mind, she will trace the different ways we've tried to ask questions about the uniqueness -- or not -- of human language.

The Language of Life will premiere on the Alumni YouTube channel.

Dr Hobaiter will be watching the premiere with us and will be answering any questions via a live Q&A on the premiere chat bar. You can submit questions in advance to [email protected] or live during the event on the premiere chat bar. (Please note in order to ask questions on the premiere chat bar you will need to be signed into a YouTube account.)

We hope you can join us!