zoi is the only word in selmo'a ZOI. zoi quotes a non-Lojban phrase. zoi is one of the Magic Words.
zoi can be a really useful quoting mechanism when you don't know the proper Lojban word for something. la'e zoi gy. foo .gy can stand in for the concept represented by foo.
The choice of delimiter for zoi is both a stylist and informational choice. The only requirement is that it not a word that appears in the quoted text. The following delimiters can be used to communicate specific intent:
.fanva. | This zoi quote is a translation of some preceding material. |
.glic. | A variation of .gy. |
.gy. | This zoi quote is quoting English text. |
.kliz. | This zoi delimiter suggests the user is quoting Klingon. Klingon writing has no k or z, and Klingon speech has nothing confusable for z. As well, .kliz. is reminiscent of the language name. |
.url. | This zoi quote is quoting a url. |
.xlali. | This guard word suggests (but does not require that) the speaker doesn't like the quotation. |
.xy. | A good guard word for English as the letter combination is rare and it is a non-English phoneme. It may sound like "uh huh," however. |
A long text should really use a long and unlikely word as a delimiter, to remove the possibility of it appearing in the text.
You are limited to using Lojban words as your delimiter in zoi. Punctuation, like "" or <> are not valid lojban words. If you use punctuation in a zoi quote, you may be understood, you won't be speaking proper Lojban.