There is a table of a few selectors that are handled specially by the compiler. You can change the table and recompile everything in the system. Of course, only the VM/compiler tweakers do this. But the language itself is dead simple.

For those interested in the original book detailing how it all works:

[link|http://users.ipa.net/~dwighth/smalltalk/bluebook/bluebook_imp_toc.html|http://users.ipa.net...book_imp_toc.html]