The Vikings spoke Old Norse, a North Germanic language that served as the "lingua franca" of the Scandinavian region from roughly the 8th to the 14th century. Old Norse was written using the runic alphabet (specifically the Younger Futhark), though most of our modern knowledge of the language comes from later sagas written in the Latin alphabet. As the Vikings expanded through trade and conquest, the language split into three main dialects: Old West Norse (spoken in Norway, Iceland, and Greenland), Old East Norse (spoken in Denmark and Sweden), and Old Gutnish. Today, Icelandic is considered the closest living relative to the language of the Vikings; it has remained so linguistically conservative over the last millennium that modern Icelanders can still read medieval Norse texts with relative ease. While the Vikings also picked up loanwords from Old English and Old French during their travels, Old Norse remained the core of their cultural identity and provided the roots for all modern Scandinavian languages spoken today.