Hacker Language (was Re: Language comparison)

>
>> Of course, this is only relevant for those like me who want a sort of
>> hacker's conlang. ;-)
>
>
> For what purpose? That is a serious question. Until you know what the
> objectives of your conlang are, you will not know what features of
> natlangs are relevant in any case.
>
If you want a hacker's conlang you have to first consider the type of
culture you're aiming for. You need to have firmly in your mind what
kind of culture/society you're designing for if you want a conlang
perfect for that particular culture. So what are the most marked
features of hacker culture?
1) Emphasis on acquiring knowledge, usually through personal experience
and experimentation rather than through, for example, lectures, classes etc
2) The hoarding of knowledge. In my experience, although a hacker might
choose to associate with particular people and help them, in general the
hacker isn't so interested on passing on knowledge. At times the culture
tends to become similar to the shamanistic systems of other cultures:
while a shaman might choose to take on an apprentice, in general being a
shaman is a matter of personal learning and then hoarding the acquired
knowledge rather than giving it out freely. A hacker is the ultimate
individual, because his or her focus is on the self rather than the
society, and this was true also of the shamans. While they might
sometimes benefit their society, their ultimate focus was on their own
knowledge and power, and they could do harm as well as good to their
community.
3) The desire to compete and to demonstrate the knowledge they possess.
After all, what's the point in being really smart and knowledgeable if
no one knows it? This can sometimes contract (2), since most hackers
want to demonstrate their skills without also giving out too much of
their knowledge to other people, since doing so weakens them relative to
others.

I'm speaking of hackers in the general sense, not in the sense of
"crackers", or even in the sense of "skilled computer programmers". I
find it interesting that in projects such as Linux (3) has managed to
triumph over (2), (that's why Linux works, because the volunteers want
kudos), while in other areas (including cracker culture) (2) is
generally more powerful than (3). And I do find a lot of similarities
between hacker culture and the shamanistic cultures. :) The most core
point is that any language built for hackers would be individual rather
than community focused and generally egocentric, since community focus
is the antithesis of the hacker's world view.
 Now, what vocabulary do you need? What kind of hackers did you mean? If
you mean computer hackers, you will have to allow for a large influx of
English loans into your conlang, if you want to talk about "Microsoft",
"Intel", "Pentium", "Athlon", etc. If for instance your syllable
structure is CVCVCV... then you're going to have to butcher any new
borrowed computing term to introduce it into your language, and there
are so many technical terms in computing you'd be taking a lot on to
invent equivalents for everything from scratch. I guess you could borrow
the terms from another language though... I'd guess the Chinese have
invented their own computing terms for a start.
 Do you want this language to be specific to hacker activities, or to be
able to talk about pretty much anything? (slightly OT, if it's aimed at
hackers I suggest your first word should mean "porn" lol).

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