Papua New Guinea is home to 840 living languages, more than any other country in the world. The country is part of the island of New Guinea and is both mountainous and heavily forested, which has helped many small communities develop and keep their own languages over thousands of years. Many of these languages are spoken by only a few thousand people, and some by far fewer. Linguists study them to understand how human speech diversifies and how languages change when communities are isolated. The country's linguistic richness is closely tied to its geography, with valleys and islands separating groups who each built their own vocabularies and grammars. Preserving these languages is now an active concern, because many are at risk as younger generations increasingly speak national or international languages instead.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.