It was a recent Translation of the Day at Conworkshop.com that inspired me to examine how signatures work in Rireinu, and Rireinutire. I already knew that you sign things with both your thumbprint and your name, but it turns out I didn’t have the vocabulary for that, after fifteen years of worldbuilding. So, time to check more carefully the paperwork I signed to join this madness.
And so, leafing through the sheaf of documents, I did find quite a few interesting new words.
pekuko adj. signatory; undersigned
pekuta vt. to sign, agree in writing (a thumbprint and signature is still a legal requirement)
pekupiñi n. signatory, party to an agreement
pekupuha n. thumbprint, mark left by a thumb
pekuvisu n. signature (a legal signature consists of a thumbprint and written name)
someñuta vt. to tamper with
someta vt. 1. to finger, poke with a finger;
2. to leaf through, peek into (esp. sth one shouldn’t)
It turns out that when you put your thumb down on a Rireinu document, you are giving it a thumbs up. A signature is a ‘thumb-letter’, and a signatory is ‘the one with the thumb’. But if you are just thumbing through some papers, you are instead using any old finger you happen to have at hand. Just be careful not to do it too often (some-ñu-ta :: finger-FREQ-INF) because that implies you are in fact tampering with them.
