I recently visited the site of my great-great-grandfather?s grave, and
on the gravestone were the following markings: ?OTPCIVEY? and
?VDOKOYI?.  He was born in 1855 and died in 1920, and I believe he may
have been from Czechoslovakia.  What do those markings mean and in
what language are they?

The text on your great-great-grandfather's gravestone is in the Czech language.

"ODPO?ÍVEJ V POKOJI" means "Rest in Peace" in Czech.

"Odpo?ívej v pokoji ? Rest in Peace"

Theatre.cz
http://www.theatre.cz/art/clanek.asp?id=5669

Incidentally, "Odpo?ívej v pokoji," in addition to being a common
inscription on gravestones, is also the Czech title for HBO's series
"Six Feet Under," which is about a family that runs a funeral home.

Google search strategy:

Google Web Search: "odpo?ívej OR odpocivej v pokoji" "rest in peace"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22odpo%C4%8D%C3%ADvej+OR+odpocivej+v+pokoji%22+%22rest+in+peace%22

I hope this is helpful. If anything is unclear or incomplete, please
request clarification; I'll be glad to offer further assistance before
you rate my answer.

Best regards,
pinkfreud

---

Clarification of Answer by pinkfreud-ga on 03 Sep 2004 17:03 PDT

Here are some newsgroup posts that may be of interest to you:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=MAPI.Id.0016.006f70616e6963204343373330303031%40MAPI.to.RFC822&output=gplain

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=8nmuma%24p5%241%40oslo-nntp.eunet.no&output=gplain

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3AF6A821.27F5%40dial.pipex.com&oe=windows-1250&output=gplain

~pinkfreud

Thank you very much for the prompt and informative answer.  I was
delighted with the service and am encouraged to use it again.