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The transcultural validation of the Avicenne ELAL tool for foreign-language immigrants and recent immigrants involved going to Sri Lanka to meet Tamil children. We validated the testing instrument after a thorough analysis of the results. Taking into account the historical background (such as the war) as well as the linguistic and cultural background is absolutely necessary to study children’s language development. The thorough language evaluation is used to make connections and to gain a better understanding of language issues within the family. Based on language evaluations in Sri Lanka, we now have a better understanding of the language issues for Tamil children in France.