Re: [tied] aks.ara, Sanskrit; is there an IE cognate?

> How do we judge or rationalise the semantic distance between the
> concept of 'melting away or perishing' and 'letter or sign'?

"That which does not perish". Not because of the physical nature of
writing (they also wrote on leaves, remember) but because the letter is
eternal in a sense which the physical writing is not.

Peter