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A growing birth rate, massive immigration from neighbouring islands and the fact that in 2011 Mayotte voted to become a French overseas department have all contributed to radically modifying the cultural and linguistic landscape of Mayotte (Mahoré), a small island in the Indian Ocean. These factors have had a direct impact on language transmission. This is not as much related to a generation gap as to socioeconomic factors such as the level of schooling and social and professional status of parents. This paper, based on the results of quantitative and qualitative studies (interviews with parents of Mahorais school children), shows how language transmission in the home and language teaching in schools do not follow the same logic and are not underpinned by the same reasoning. The results show that the linguistic situation in Mayotte is complex, given that the intergenerational conversation on the transmission of first languages (Shimaore and Kibushi) is constantly affected by dominant social representations which are themselves constantly being redrawn, in a context of changing social values.