Leetspeak

Leet (or 1337, l33t) is a custom language. Leet is derived from the word Elite. Leetspeak is used on the internet, and is especially prevalent in gaming communities, but it's also used a lot in the scene. The origin of the language is that it was quicker to type, and second is that back in these days only experienced users would understand this language. Nowadays this is not important anymore.

For the purposes of this text, leet is defined as the corruption or modification of written text. Therefore it's not a new language, it just modifies existing languages. It is a system whereby certain letters are replaced either by numbers or symbols which look like the letter being replaced. As you may have noticed 1337 uses numbers and symbols to replace letters, but often there is a re-spelling of word involved too. For example 'the' is in leetspeak 'teh', and owned is "pwnd" or "0wn3d". There are no rules to define how this works, but it is generally phonetic. A simple form or leetspeak is for example: i pwn u (I own you). A more complicated form of leetspeak is for example: j00 4r3 $tup1d (you are stupid). This complicated form is not used much by people in the scene, more often it's being used by young gamers or the so called 'br33z@h sluts'.

The most common leetspeak letter replacement in the scene is the 'I'. The uppercase 'I' letter is practically always replaced by the lowercase 'i'. The original reason for this was that the uppercase I and the lowercase l were so similar that it was very hard or not possible to see which one it was. Nowadays it's still being replaced, for the traditional reason and because it looks cool. Examples: iNTERNAL (releasetag), ADDiCTiON (releasegroup).

Here are some custom 1337-speak words and abbraviations:
Pwn / 0wn
Pwn is a common intentional misspelling of "own", a term indicating domination of something or someone.
n00b / newb
n00b is possibly one of the weightiest insults in leetspeak. The literal translation is newbie, and it is used to refer to both those who are literally new with the scene and also to insult those who in fact do know what they are doing but have slipped up somehow.
w00t
w00t is quite a difficult concept to describe, as after many years in the wilds of the internet, w00t has mutated from a four letter word into a meme of sorts. Without getting into intense debate, suffice to say that it indicates jubilation of sorts, either as a good natured cheer of excitement or as a modifier for insults, when combined with terms like n00b, amplifying their effectiveness
lol / lmao / rofl
These abbraviations stand respectivily for laughing out loud, laughing my ass off and rolling on the floor laughing.
Omfg
Stands for oh my fucking god
Stfu
Stands for shut the fuck up
h4x0r
This stands for hacker
pr0n
Stands for porn. The origin of this word is that by typing porn this way, the message/text wouldn't be filtered by content/language filters.

The suffix "-z0r" (also "-x0r", or other variations thereof) can be used, like the standard English -er and -or, to derive an agent noun from a verb, such as "pwnz0r" or "h4x0r". It can also be suffixed to the stem of any verb, with no apparent change in meaning. It is rumored that it originates from the word for "king" in a different language.
The suffix "-age", can be used, like the standard English -ness, to derive an agent noun from a verb, such as "pwnage" or "suckage".