Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

Dear All Ane-ers and B-hebrew people,
 I apologize for cross posting,
I notice that indirect speech appears in
so-called Late Biblical Hebrew.
I.e., in Esther 3:4, "because he told them *that* (ki) he 
was a Jew," rather than "because he told them, saying: ' am a Jew'."
Compare for example 1 Chron 21:18: "The angel of YHWH said to Gad
to tell David *that* David should go up and set up an altar to YHWH,"
and 2 Sam 24:18 "And Gad went to David on that day and said to him,
Go up, establish for YHWH an altar."  The instances in the tanak of 
indirect speech are very few.
When did indirect speech enter the language, and from 
where? I am searching for non-biblical parallels.
Do any of you know of non-biblical parallels in any contemporary
semitic or non-semitic language? For example, could it be Indo-European,
or Persian, or Greek? What contemporary languages have this feature?
Thanks a lot.
Liz


Lisbeth S. Fried
Visiting Scholar
University of Michigan
Department of Near Eastern Studies
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
lizfried AT umich.edu

Spem successus alit.