Question: which  descendants of French colonists who settled in Acadia did John Grenier  writes that she is the premier scholar of

<P0-S0> Old Mines (French: "La Vieille Mine" ) is the name of an unincorporated community and surrounding area in southeast Missouri that were settled by French colonists in the early 18th century when the area was part of the Illinois Country of New France. <P0-S1>  The early settlers came to mine for lead, and their descendants still inhabit the area where, through a combination of geographic and cultural isolation, they maintained a distinctive French culture well into the 20th century. <P0-S2>  As recently as the late 1980s there may have been a thousand native speakers of the region's Missouri French dialect. <P0-S3>  This culturally distinct population has sometimes been referred to as "paw-paw French" and lives in an amorphous area in Washington, Jefferson, and St. Francois counties roughly 15 miles either side of a line from Potosi to De Soto. <P0-S4>  The community of Old Mines itself is in northeastern Washington County six miles north of Potosi. <SEP> <P1-S0> Naomi E. S. Griffiths is a Canadian historian. <P1-S1>  She is a Distinguished Research Professor in the history department at Carleton University. <P1-S2>  Historian John Grenier writes that she is "the premier scholar of the Acadians" and that her "magnum opus", "From Migrant to Acadian", "on the growth of Acadian society and identity is the natural starting place for any study that touches on Acadian history." <P1-S3>  "From Migrant to Acadian: A North American Border People" received the Lionel Groulx Prize in 2006, which recognizes the best literary work published over the last year on the history of the French in North America. <SEP> <P2-S0>  The colony was located in what is now Eastern Canada's Maritime provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island), as well as part of Quebec, and present-day Maine to the Kennebec River. <P2-S1>  Although today most of the Acadians and Québécois are French-speaking (francophone) Canadians, Acadia was a distinctly separate colony of New France. <P2-S2>  It was geographically and administratively separate from the French colony of Canada (modern-day Quebec). <P2-S3>  As a result, the Acadians and Québécois developed two distinct histories and cultures. <P2-S4>  They also developed a slightly different French language. <P2-S5> The Acadians (French: "Acadiens" , ] ) are the descendants of French colonists who settled in Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries, some of whom are also descended from the Indigenous peoples of the region. <P2-S6>  France has one official language and to accomplish this they have an administration in charge of the language. <P2-S7>  Since the Acadians were separated from this council, their French language evolved independently, and Acadians retain several elements of 17th-century French that have been lost in France. <P2-S8>  The settlers whose descendants became Acadians came from many areas in France, but especially regions such as Île-de-France, Normandy, Brittany, Poitou and Aquitaine. <P2-S9>  Acadian family names have come from many areas in France. <P2-S10>  For example, the Maillets are from Paris; the LeBlancs of Normandy; the surname Melanson is from Brittany, and those with the surnames Bastarache and Basque came from Aquitaine. <SEP> <P3-S0> French Canadians (also referred to as Franco-Canadians or Canadiens; French: "Canadien(ne)s français(es)" ) are an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to French colonists who settled in Canada from the 17th century onward. <P3-S1>  Today, French Canadians constitute the main French-speaking population in Canada, accounting for about 22% of the total population.