There is a need to inarm translingualism in order to avoid latent tensions that stem from the ascription of linguistic predominance to ‘standard’ English, particularly amid teachers of immigrant children and in overall public discourse. Drawing inspiration from the 1974 resolutions of the Conference on College Composition and Communication and the 1996 Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights which defend the empowerment of students to ‘own’ their languages, this article explores the diversity inherent in world Englishes in orthography, grammar, lexis, and phonology. A large amount of indigenous and European languages spoken across Africa have affected the apparition of varied Englishes; as a result, Africans in the US speak English with different accents and fluencies. The following factors add to the translingual character of English spoken by most first- and 1.5-generation African immigrants in the US: medium of instruction in their countries of origin; duration of exposition to ‘standard’ English; age at immigration to the US; and their alacrity to surrender to social coercion to speak English like mainstream Americans. This article foregrounds the historical as well as the modern socioecological linguistic realities of African immigrants’ English speech and how these realities affe African immigrant acculturation in their host country. KEYWORDS: Translingualism, world Englishes, African immigr