lobykai

See also: bellyfeel

lobykai was an incorrectly used term for denoting something that is "Lojbanic" that is more natural to Lojban, or will become so, in comparison with some alternative.

If "everything in Lojban is Lojbanic", then the only criterion for style is grammatical correctness. But users often feel that one choice rather than another is preferable; and it is convenient to designate this preference by a tag which bypasses the sometimes nebulous reasons that user might provide.

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis has a number of forms, not all of which are perhaps relevant to Lojban. Still, the emergence of a lobykai consensus might be one effect - or, alternately, the absence of such a consensus might also be construed as another.

• Esperanto, having been intended as an international auxiliary language, would seem to have as its aim an ideal transparency and culture-neutrality
• Klingon, which has developed its own culture or virtual culture (and who can say where pretending ends and subculture begins?) based on inferences from characters, plots, and situations from a fictional world, would seem to have as its aim the replacement of ones native culture: these are in their own way, Sapir-Whorf experiments. Lojban by its intent to be "culturally neutral", would approach the former condition. But by the uniqueness of its design, probably tends toward the condition of the latter. It has even been called "humanly-unlearnable" - but in the context of natural languages and writing systems of much greater complexity, this can only be seen as counter-propaganda. That is to say, as Tolkien once speculated, the stranger the language, the more it produces its own mythology.

For those who think it is sufficient to import trans-Lojbanic values and aesthetics into Lojbanistan without alteration, here are counter-examples:

• www.yakscorner.com/new/big/29story.html
• spofu fa le'e di'u judri
• www.artbyelephants.com

.i ku'i le lojbo xanto cu morji le seldau .i xu xagmau

• nitcion (link):

  Although I must admit to some hardliner disquiet when I see Helsem laying down the law on what is or isn't lobykai.

  • stidi jenai xusra .i pu djica lenu tavla le sidbo
  • nitcion:

    .i na pante la'edi'u sa'e .i ku'i .ei ko se kadje lenu xusra ledu'u xo kaunai da zmanei de .i vi vreji lo kampu se jinvi .i lo sevzi se jinvi cu .eipe'i se tcati le cmene be se su'opa jinvi

    • maikl.:

      lemi se tcati cu xamgu su'ore mu'e febvi

• adam:

  .i pe'i roda lobykai gi'o lojbo i le ka ckaji cu jmina ma le smuni

• nitcion:

  .i li'a zo steci cu se smuni .i mi na birti ledu'u zo lobykai jai se srera .i ku'i li'a zo jbosteci cu xagmau fi leni nalsre se jimpe

• .i zo lobykai na toldra .i ku'i ji'a na frica zo lojbo le ka makau smuni ce'u
• zo jbokai cu zmadu zo lobykai le kamlobykai zo'o
• .djorden.:

  wouldn't jbozma be more inline with what the desired meaning of this lujvo is (that being subjectively more lojbanic (I dunno where ckaji came from here, but it seems to have nothing to do with anything since lojbo already deals with that].

• ckaji doesn't change the meaning - the tanru lojbo ckaji means lojbo - but as a lujvo it is more precise. It has the meaning usage bestows on it (a la let usage decide; this is the only true tavlykai victory in the reference grammar), so lobykai means exactly what it is used to mean above - because that's what everyone means by it.
  • Why does "lojbo" need any extra precision?
    • That's what everyone who uses it means by it. There is no way to document negative usage.
      • Those who don't use it don't mean anything by it.
        • But even those who don't use it do understand what it means, at least if they are wiki frequenters or connoisseurs of helsemy.