Mack Vann

8bae7e4a3ddd5d0d500f6a7067005ac5.jpg

Monolingual Cherokee speaker Mack Vann, 83, holds the start of a handmade bow in the backyard of his Briggs, Okla., home on March 14, 2014. Vann is part of a dwindling population of Native Americans in Oklahoma who only speak their original traditional language. Tribal language departments are turning to fluent and monolingual speakers to help translate tribal words into English in efforts to preserve the languages. (AP Photo/Kristi Eaton)