Since 2011 the Comorian Island of Mayotte has been France’s 101st département, thereby becoming part of the European Union. As a result, France has consolidated and strengthened its strategic position in the Indian Ocean. With the change of political status in 2011, new developments have occurred in Mayotte. It is still unclear whether the expected economic boom, extensive social benefits or injection of EU regional funds can help to alleviate poverty and raise living standards. There is concern, however, that massive immigration to Mayotte from the surrounding territories is diminishing any progress and will continue to do so. Not only France but also the EU will have to adapt to new immigration problems due to this new external border. In this situation one thing is clear: the language contact between French and the local languages, which is the result of political developments, is leading to new dynamics. The diglossic situation east of Africa, between French as the dominant language and local languages like Shimaoré or Shibushi spoken in Mayotte will become more marked in the next few years.

The present paper is a pre-study based on the observation that some Algonquian speaking peoples in New France of the 17th century have been generalized under the name „Algonquin“ instead of being named by their microgroup ethnonym (or exonym). The corpus consists of five volumes of Thwaites’ Jesuit Relations from 1632 to 1670 with an interval of around ten years each. The study is a contribution to the anthropological and historical discussion of ethnographic and / or ethnonymical change in New France. / Cette contribution est une étude préalable basée sur l’observation que quelques peuples parlant une langue de la famille linguistique algonquienne en Nouvelle France du 17esiècle ont été regroupé sous le nom « Algonquin » au lieu d’être appelés par ses ethnonymes (ou exonymes) de microgroupe. Le corpus se compose de cinq volumes des Relations des Jésuites de Thwaites de 1632 à 1670, chacun publié à environ dix ans d’intervalle. L’étude contribue à la discussion anthropologique et historique sur le changement ethnographique et/ou d’ethnonymes en Nouvelle France