Gothic is an extinct East Germanic language that was spoken in parts of the Crimea until the 17th century. It was originally written with a runic alphabet about which little is known. The Gothic alphabet was invented around the middle of the 4th century AD by Bishop Wulfila to provide his people with a written language and a means of reading his translation of the Bible. The language is based on the Greek alphabet with elements from the Latin and Runic alphabets. There are no separate numerals in Gothic, but each letter has a numeric value.