[arethuza]

In Common Lisp you can create your own syntax for hash table literals fairly easily with a reader macro:

http://frank.kank.net/essays/hash.html

Mind you - reader macros should be used with a degree of care otherwise you basically create completely new language. I remember working on a project where I got a drop of some code from one of the other organizations in the project (by tape, this was a long time ago) opening the file and wondering what language the code was written in and taking a while to realize that it was indeed Lisp - but one that had used reader macros to do strange and terrible things.

Mind you, once I learned about reader macros I went on to do my own crazy stuff with them - they are almost too powerful a feature (almost!).