Language - a barrier to communication?

I read the Theory of Deconstruction by Jacques Derrida some years back. OK confession, I tried reading it but gave up after like 30/40 pages, philosophy is not my cup of tea. He made an interesting point that language is a barrier to communication. The rate at which we think is lot higher than what we talk and hence verbalizing slows it down. Which leads to the question, we think in language and hence our thinking is limited by the speed we can use the language (I got this thought on my own but probably Jacques would have made the same point later in the book. So no idea what was his analysis of it).
I remember the Newspeak of 1984. The same idea was propounded there. By removing words that had association with dissent, critical thinking, the big brother insured that after a while people lost the ability to have dissent since they had no word to really think it in! This thinking in language is so hardwired that when i try to think without language I draw a blank!
A quick search on internet reveals papers, some say that you cant really think outside of language. One posed a very interesting question - how do deaf think, but no answers. Maybe some thinking is hard wired into brain. thinks like flight for birds etc which probably require some specialized thinking that is sort of programmed into our biological beings. This sets me thinking.
If we take the computing systems analogy further maybe there might turn up interesting ideas. The compiler theory works the same way. there is a certain pattern to a language. By defining a small set of tokens and the rules that follow a pattern, a new computer language can be developed which is almost a mathematical translation. Can the same rules be applied to human thinking?
Can we internalize a basic set of symbols, maybe pictures, develop some mental rule to associate various such symbols into patterns that can be recognized as having a new meaning? Pictorial memory is lot faster than thinking in verbal language where a lot of overhead of arranging words into predictable and hence coherent sentence is too time wasting. Such a symbol based system will greatly speed up thinking by extension.
I was reading this paper The Role of Language in Intelligence which made an interesting point that language and intelligence reinforce each other. The more intelligent u get, the more concepts you add to your language and the more concepts you add the more intelligent you (the society as a whole) gets since it now has greater tools (language) to use. If we take a look at two ancient civilizations of India and China maybe we can draw further understanding of this. India had Sanskrit, held by many to be the natural language most suited for a computer since the rules of grammar are very well defined. Chinese has a pictorial language with lots of symbols and meaning depending on usage. Indians were masters of theoretical areas like maths and astronomy while Chinese were brilliant engineers (think rocketry, printing, paper etc). Maybe the more mathematical Sanskrit lead to more structured thinking while the more usage dependent Chinese lead to better engineers (application - usage).
Still I am not convinced that the only way to think is to first have a word, since in order to have a word you need to think of the association first. So can we only create a new word by extending an existing theme? Or is it possible to come up with something totally different?
I have often found some of the more intelligent people are also good at languages, maybe because language by its variations in concepts and usage actually fuel creative and critical thinking? is there a case to expanding the realms of language by introducing new concepts from other world languages?

Hamburg, Cologne and a city called Frankfurt

A view of MaineHattan - Thats manhattan on river Maine Frankfurt. Lovely city, its what New York should have been!

Hotel opposite Hamburg railway station. My Mobcam was not upto capturing the glories of this party town but its a great place to have fun.
I got out the railway station at Cologne to see a construction site and wondering why people so love the place. Then hunting for the tourist information bureau got back in and came out the other side of the station when this beauty hit me. Whoa!

What impressed me the most about Germany were the people. Very friendly contrary to my believe. Luckily English was not as scarce as I feared, knowing no German. But collegues made the trip great fun.

Seattle Sojurn

This past year has been the year of travel. Managed to travel from Delhi to Lucknow via Uttaranchal all by bus. Then a trip to Bangalore, 2 trips to Hong Kong, 3 trips to Lucknow, Trip to US, Charlotte, New York capped by a visit to Seattle. Its a miserably long flight from Charlotte to Seattle. When planes take 6 hours to get you from coast to coast its then that one realizes the sheer size of USA. So there I am, mere 4 days after freezing in New York, in balmy Seattle. First the cabin crew announces some security breach and tells us that subway aint running, then tells us we can't disembark! after arnd 20 min of drama on the craft, sitting on asphalt we are finally let off.
Ah coffee. Now that Seattle is the town for coffee is something I learnt a bit later (tho why??? I mean why shd coffee and Seattle be connected. Columbia - Ok, Indonesia ok, why Seattle???). While waiting for sis dear to come and pick me up I manage to grab a coffee and loose my credit card. Arggghhhh!!!!
Anyways, a little while later I was introduced to this quaint little place called the Fishermen's market. I've noticed this thing about US. They do manage to take quaint places and make it quainter. This market is essentially a trinkets/food market with insane crowd. There is a lot to eat! There is also the first Starbucks that opened here. It was too crowded for me to venture inside so I had to forgo my usual capucino. Ah a bulb blinks inside my head. So thats why Seattle is called the coffee place!
Out of the teeming places and we hit to the space needle. Funny name but the building is quite striking. Did I mention this was an extended weekend? Nah I didnt, so well what do u expect on an extended weekend but crowds? We hence plonked into this museum nearby and that of all the places turns out closed! Museums anyway are a long drawn affair. After generally lolling about the place, we finally hit home.
Next day I managed to get to another place which had a Now I've seen a lot of waterfalls, many quite high and once in Langkawi, even swum a bit in the pool below - try fresh water swimming if you haven't, its quite fun; it was the first time that I had a water spray hitting me while being above the fall itself. Awesome!
Like most places American, the fine folks had made nice pathways to generally mess around and we duly did that. Localites, please note, make me run a few kilometers everyday, I can do with more stamina. I do miss those chaiwallahs that you get at every corner in India. Here we are on a wet day, sitting next to a fall and no tea in sight. Gaah. "Kabhi kissi to mukkamal jahan nahin milta...". I think it'll work wonders if we can send like 20% of our population to US. They get the critical mass for these and we get some breathing space.
Anyways so we generally roamed around, spending quality family time. Seattle is the kind of city that you need to live in to appreciate. No I don't mean coming to terms with the rains. Rather the charm here is really in the museums, the marina on lake Washington, the city spaces and so, things you can't really do in a rushed holiday and enjoy. So if you really want to enjoy Seattle, spend a few days here, pick up a job with good stock ops, laze on the Marina and life will be good. Amen

of Hope

Finally i managed to visit New York. As someone who loves cities, I found NY to be as much as I wanted it to be. Vibrant, glitzy and fun.
All the great collection of people that converge there, relishing the delights of a megapolis make it a truly remarkable city. You hear all sorts of languages while walking down the streets, bump into people across the world. This post tho, will touch only a small part of the experience. I had only arnd a day in the city, too short a time by any stretch of imagination for a city of this size. I do believe that the best way to really see a city is by living in it, hopefully someday I shall manage to live in the Big Apple too.
As mentioned I had only a few hrs, so we (Nali and I) decided staten island ferry might be a good way to see the skyline and have a dekkho at the statue of Liberty. The ferry itself turned out to be a disappointment, with all windows being closed. Guess they couldnt help it, it being freezing outside, still watching the towering Manhatten skyline from a closed ferry deck is no fun. So here we are, both thinking what a waste. Still I'm in New York and there is plenty to look at.
Suddenly looms the Statue. I was a bit disappointed at its size and all. Then Nali mentions, imagine this being hundred years ago, U a poor immigrant braving a very hazardous journey for many days, sailing to the hope called America. Its been closed cramped stormy sees and suddenly you see her.Hope now standing there welcoming you in the form of a towering statue in a distance draining away all the tiredness.
Yes indeed it struck me. Today there might be the imposing Manhattan skyline, but the Lady is special because she symbolizes hope. The idea that is America.

Chronical of a weekend

There is never a dull moment in life when a bull is let loose! As it happens my Thunderbird is back with me and to celebrate the occasion LeChat and I decided to hit the roads. My knowledge of places around Pune is sketchy at best so the intrepid hiker LeChat is the navigator. Soon we find ourselves some small hamlet near Nilkantheshwar.
There is this nice little river murmuring by with rocks and all strategically placed for sitting with feet in water and hot day needed no better breaks.
after half an hour of nice talks and generally hunting for fishes in water we come back and the fun started. Apparently some kids (just a guess) thought that its fun to deflate both tires of a bullet in a God forsaken place with no hint of civilization nearby and promptly acted on the thought.
I know those Industrial age barons had the right idea in corralling those blighters in schools. It beats me why are they let out during day at all? So here we are no road on one side, a hill to climb on other and both tires flat.
Well I did hear a bike coming and the gentleman tells us, nope no repair shop nearby, best you can do is to get to Panshet which is the wrong side of the hill. LeChat true to form is clapping her hands in childlike glee - "Yippyy! We have an adventure ahead. Drag this beast on the hill my boy and we shall have the walk of our life!" I tell you sometimes I wish I had listened to what mom used to say about riding in woods with adventurous hikers for company!
So here we are, a shiny big bike next to us, walking up a hill for a couple of km and dragging the beast along. But we made it, only to realize that the shop which never closes is in fact closed today. Luckily someplace downhill has another shop. Wise to truant seeking shop keepers we decide to walk down first leaving the beast behind and check out on the repair shop's status. Ah luck has not completely deserted us, it is in fact open. Walk back, drag the bike along and finally we are there.
With all the dragging on dirt roads, the front tube valve body broke, the rear tyre did escape injury. I did tell you the kids couldn't really take all the air out there was just a hint of it left, otherwise dragging the bike would have been impossible. Well there is just one shop and too many pesky kids around, clearing the queue takes long. Sometime around 6, the gentleman does start working on the tyre. Took 1/2 hour to mend, shifting the valve and then adventure part duex starts. The gentleman has never worked on tyres with disc brakes before and reassembling ain't that straight forward. somewhere around 7:30 the tyre gets back, break is working and tyre seems to be doing its job. The intrepid explorers are back on track this time taking the road more explored back to Pune.
its a good hard drive for a long time and its nearly 8 when we hit Warje bang in the middle of a traffic jam and the gears start acting funny. But its a short drive and finally huffing and puffing we reach LeChat's abode. after the usual tootsie and cheerios with the family, the two of us decide to wrap up with some dinner nearby to celebrate our return on same day, hop back on bike. kick, start and the clutch wire breaks! So here we are, nearly at 10, all shops closed and no clutch. Well an old bike was commandeered and I am dropped off the nearest auto, packing food for self on the way. So an auto from Warje to Aundh.
Reach home uneventfully, just that the food could have done a lead role in Asian paints ad for sheer exuberance of colors. after picking up whatever looked edible I hit the sack.
Next morning I have to reach Hadapser to meet someone. So an auto ride from Aundh to Hadapsar. Okie met the gentleman and took an auto back to Warje from Hadapsar. Reached the bike and called the mechanic.
The overalls clad takes his sweet time and gets in around 7pm and starts dissembling the parts to replace the wire. A screw starts slipping. Okie dude now if you want my bike in your workshop - You drag it there. The dude does that and I hop into Lechat's limo and drive there. another 1/2 hr and now the dude tells me he needs to weld the screw and then take it out, no driver shall accomplish it on its own. The hitch? Guess? the welder has gone home! No option so I leave the bike and take an auto.
So an auto ride from Warje to Aundh. I get near Bremen Circle and the phone buzzes. LeChat giggling wildly! hello, I know I've been having an interesting weekend still some words would help. Ah it turns out once the shop closes, the mechanic decides to try again and the screw comes out clean! Still I am happy at least its gonna make morning commute better. So I return to Warje on the same auto, take the bike and finally home at 11 Pm.
So in total the weekend gist
1. 2Km drag of Bull mostly uphill
2. Auto from Warje to Aundh
3. Auto from Aundh to Hadapsar
4. Auto from Hadapsar to Warje
5. Auto from Warje to Aundh
6. Auto from Aundh to Warje.

And they all complaint that I do nothing on weekends!

ahem