Scots join the dots online

For those Scots internet users who grit their teeth while having to type out the suffix .uk, help may soon be at hand.

Moves are under way to establish a .sco – or “dotsco”, as it has become known – internet domain name for organisations promoting the Scots language or Scottish culture.

A Glasgow-based software engineer has set up a website to rally support for the “top-level domain”, which he has high hopes of achieving.

The campaign has been offered support by like-minded individuals in Catalonia, who successfully lobbied the global body responsible for domain names, the Internet Corporation For Assigned Names And Numbers, for the name .cat to designate cultural organisations in the Spanish province.

Now members of the Scottish parliament’s cross-party group on Scots language are to be presented with the dotsco idea. The SNP’s Rob Gibson, the group’s chairman, is to use a meeting of the group on Tuesday , the eve of St Andrew’s Day, to raise the issue with Scots enthusiasts and hopefully get them to join the campaign.

“Dotsco is part of the way we can celebrate diversity in our own country,” said Gibson . “Some 1.5 million people speak some form of Doric or Scots, but this is potentially for supporters of things Scottish from all over the world.”

The dotsco campaign follows several previous attempts to have a distinct internet domain name, such as .scot.uk, assigned to Scotland. This has always been refused on the grounds that Scotland is not an independent country with its own representation at the UN.

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