There is not much we can say on this regard to the ancient Near East, as I can think of only three explicit references to difficulties in communication.

(1) Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta

The first reference to this sort of scenario comes from a Sumerian myth about the invention of writing. Enmerkar, the king of the city of Uruk in southern Iraq, sent a messenger to Aratta, an unidentified place somewhere in eastern Iran. The messenger went back and forth between Uruk and Aratta as the kings engaged in negotiations, but eventually he was unable to remember the full message. Undeterred, Enmerkar invented writing on the spot and produced a letter for the king of Aratta, who was completely puzzled by this new invention.

[Enmerkar's] speech was substantial, and its contents extensive. The messenger, whose mouth was heavy, was not able to repeat it. Because the messenger, whose mouth was tired, was not able to repeat it, the lord of Kulaba patted some clay and wrote the message as if on a tablet. Formerly, the writing of messages on clay was not established. Now, under that sun and on that day, it was indeed so. The lord of Kulaba inscribed the message like a tablet. It was just like that. The messenger was like a bird, flapping its wings; he raged forth like a wolf following a kid. He traversed five mountains, six mountains, seven mountains. He lifted his eyes as he approached Aratta. He stepped joyfully into the courtyard of Aratta, he made known the authority of his king. Openly he spoke out the words in his heart.

The messenger transmitted the message to the lord of Aratta: "Your father, my master, has sent me to you; the lord of Uruk, the lord of Kulaba, has sent me to you."

"What is it to me what your master has spoken? What is it to me what he has said?"

"This is what my master has spoken, this is what he has said. My king is like a huge mes tree... this tree has grown high, uniting heaven and earth; its crown reaches heaven, its trunk is set upon the earth. He who is made to shine forth in lordship and kingship, Enmerkar, the son of Utu, has given me a clay tablet. O lord of Aratta, after you have examined the clay tablet, after you have learned the content of the message, say whatever you will say to me, and I shall announce that message in the shrine E-ana as glad tidings to the scion of him with the glistening beard, whom his stalwart cow gave birth to in the mountains of the shining me, who was reared on the soil of Aratta, who was given suck at the udder of the good cow, who is suited for office in Kulaba, the mountain of great me, to Enmerkar, the son of Utu; I shall repeat it in his jipar, fruitful as a flourishing mes tree, to my king, the lord of Kulaba."

After he had spoken thus to him, the lord of Aratta received his kiln-fired tablet from the messenger. The lord of Aratta looked at the tablet. The transmitted message was just nails, and his brow expressed anger! The lord of Aratta stared at his kiln-fired tablet.

(2) Amenhotep III of Egypt and Tarḫuntaradu of Arzawa

The Hittite empire, a Late Bronze Age kingdom located in what is now Turkey, was often on the verge of collapse. By the early 14th century BCE, most of the Hittite kingdom had fallen to attacks from the Kaška peoples from the Black Sea region and from the kingdom of Arzawa in western Anatolia. Even the capital city of Ḫattuša was captured and burned, and the kingdom consisted of little more than the besieged territory of the city of Šamuḫa. The king of Egypt was so convinced of the imminent demise of the weakened Hittite kingdom that he opened diplomatic relations with the kingdom of Arzawa in western Anatolia, expecting it to become the next great power in the Middle East.

As a postscript to a letter from Tarḫuntaradu to Amenhotep III, the scribe who inscribed Tarḫuntaradu's letter added a personal note to his counterpart in the Egyptian court, instructing him to write only in Hittite. The implication is that the land of Arzawa had few if any scribes competent in Akkadian (the lingua franca of the ancient Near East) or Egyptian, unlike the relatively multilingual Hittite court.

You, scribe, please write to me and place your name at the end. The tablets which they bring here, always write them in Hittite.

Arzawa remained a relatively minor power, however, as the Hittites saw a reversal of fortunes under Šuppiluliuma I, a member of the royal family by marriage who murdered his brother-in-law Tudḫaliya the Younger and seized the throne. Under his rule, the Hittite empire not only survived but expanded to its maximum extent, controlling most of Anatolia as well as Syria and the northern Levantine coast.

(3) A Lydian ambassador in the Assyrian court

In the 7th century BCE, King Gyges of Lydia (a kingdom in what is now Turkey) sent a messenger to King Aššurbanipal of Assyria. Unfortunately for Gyges, the Assyrians claimed that there was no one at court who could understand Lydian. An excerpt from Aššurbanipal's Prism E:

[Gyges'] messenger approached the border of my land with a present to ask about my health. The people of my land looked at him and said to him, "Who are you, stranger, whose mounted messenger has never come to these places?" The people brought him to me, into my presence, in Nineveh, the city of my kingship. (Among) the languages of the east and the west, which Aššur had put into my hand, there was no master of his language, and his language remained strange, so they could not understand his words.

Multilingualism in the ancient Near East

References to people, especially royalty, fluent in multiple languages are more numerous. In the Sumerian praise poem Šulgi B, which highlights the deeds of King Šulgi of the Ur III period (late 3rd millennium BCE), the king boasts about knowing five languages.

By origin I am a son of Sumer; I am a warrior, a warrior of Sumer. Thirdly, I can conduct a conversation with a man from the black mountains. Fourthly, I can do service as a translator with an Amorite, a man of the mountains ....... I myself can correct his confused words in his own language. Fifthly, when a man of Subir yells ......, I can even distinguish the words in his language, although I am not a fellow-citizen of his. When I provide justice in the legal cases of Sumer, I give answers in all five languages. In my palace no one in conversation switches to another language as quickly as I do.

There is a similar sentiment in Šulgi C, another praise poem.

Also I know Amorite as well as I do Sumerian. ...... mountain people walking in the hills ......, they greet me and I reply to them in Amorite. Also I know the Elamite language as well as I do Sumerian. ...... in Elam ......, they greet me and I reply in Elamite.

To cite an Iron Age example, the regent Yariri of the Hittite city of Carchemish boasted about his knowledge of foreign languages, both spoken and written, in a text written in the 8th century BCE.

...in the City's writing, in the Suraean writing, in the Assyrian writing and in the Taimani writing, and (in total) I knew 12 languages.

Plutarch's biographical sketch of Cleopatra is probably the most famous description of an ancient ruler knowing multiple languages.

There was sweetness also in the tones of her voice; and her tongue, like an instrument of many strings, she could readily turn to whatever language she pleased, so that in her interviews with Barbarians she very seldom had need of an interpreter, but made her replies to most of them herself and unassisted, whether they were Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes or Parthians. Nay, it is said that she knew the speech of many other peoples also, although the kings of Egypt before her had not even made an effort to learn the native language, and some actually gave up their Macedonian dialect.