In 1879 a German priest named Johann Schleyer created Volapük, a universal language designed to be easy to learn. Its vocabulary drew on European languages, mostly English, and it used regular affixes to build new words. By the end of the 1880s it had more than 200 societies and 25 journals, and its 1889 congress in Paris ran entirely in Volapük. Schleyer insisted on umlauts, which many members found foreign and ridiculous, and the movement split by 1890. Esperanto, launched in 1887 without umlauts, soon absorbed most new recruits. Volapük did not die out completely, and its name survives in a Danish expression that means it is all Greek to me.

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.