The Colonia Tovar dialect, or Alemán Coloniero, is a dialect that is spoken in Colonia Tovar, Venezuela, and belongs to the Low Alemannic branch of German.
It is spoken by descendants of Germans from the Black Forest region of southern Baden, who emigrated to Venezuela in 1843.
[citation needed] Until 1942, when Colonia Tovar was declared a municipality, most of its residents above the age of 15 were fluent in German, being unable to converse or understand Spanish, owing to the town's isolation.
The town became connected with the rest of the country and so people began to converse in Spanish, which has led to the dialect's decline.
Despite attempts to use German as the language of instruction, the state has not given local schools permission to teach in bilingual classes, and so, only private tutors were allowed to instruct in the Colonia Tovar dialect and in Standard German.