Sign languages have two primary articulation tracts: the two hands. They also have secondary articulation tracts that can be partitioned: the nonmanuals. Thus multiple propositions can be conveyed simultaneously. We have attested at most four simultaneously articulated independent propositions in sign languages, and suggest that this limit follows at least partly from limitations on visual short-term memory to cope with the information received. It appears further that the simultaneous propositions must be connected, often sharing arguments or verbs, an account of which concerns matters of production and of cognitive load. A brief look at simultaneity in spoken language suggests that similar if not identical limitations apply.

An increasingly common theme in publications on ethical review in the social sciences is the burden that regulation places on researchers. But empirical findings of the extent of the problem are difficult to find, and much of the criticism of ethical review boards rests on anecdotal and individual reports. Within linguistics there has also been a greater focus on ethics, but discussion has focused on field research, and ethical regulation has not been systematically surveyed. In this report I present and discuss the results of an anonymous survey of linguistic fieldworkers and their responses to human subjects review. These results provide a snapshot of fieldwork regulation and its effect on field practices.

During the past two decades, field linguists have expressed serious concerns over the unprecedented rapid loss of 'indigenous languages', the endangerment of many others, and the implications of these processes for the education and economic development of 'indigenous populations', among other matters. The book to which this article responds is a rare volume that focuses on the use of 'minority languages' in education and national economies to eradicate poverty, as well as on socioeconomic hardships the poor experience in shifting to the 'dominant language'. I explain how complex the subject matter is and how little prepared linguistics still is for it. I show that our profession has no empirically grounded and ecology-specific advice to provide to economists and politicians who are concerned with societal multilingualism (mis)construed as an obstacle to economic development. Nor does the field appear to have determined under what ideal socioeconomic conditions a language can be maintained without being a liability or an unnecessary burden to its speakers.