Rest in peace united in Christ." The abbreviation R.I.P., meaning "Requiescat in pace" "Rest in peace", continues to be engraved on the gravestones of Christians, especially in the Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican denominations. In the Tridentine Requiem Mass of the Catholic Church the phrase appears several times. To satisfy a vogue for rhyming couplets on tombstones, the phrase has been parsed ungrammatically as: This verse has been found inscribed in Hebrew on gravestones dating from the 1st century BC, in the graveyard of Bet Shearim. It speaks of the righteous person who died because he could not stand the evil surrounding him. A
Latin spelling and pronunciation , starting in rural areas at the end of the Republican period. The process, however, does not seem to have been completed before the 3rd century AD in Vulgar Latin, and some scholars say that it may have been regular by the 5th century. Vowel and consonant length were more significant and more clearly defined in Latin than in modern English. Length is the duration of time that a particular sound is held before proceeding to the next sound in a word. Unfortunately, "vowel length" is a confusing term for English speakers, who, in their language, call "long vowels" what