Absolutely excellent article. Being a science fiction writer, I often just take a shortcut with deus-ex-machina devices like universal nanite translators or somesuch, but when I sit down and think about how communication actually happens (like I've been doing for a story I'm writing) and what it would be like to try communicating with another species of intelligent beings, it's incredible how difficult it is. I have to strain my brain to think up ways that one could understand a completely alien vocabulary, and I love that you've drawn a parallel between that kind of situation to how we try (pitifully) to communicate with fairly intelligent creatures on our own planet.