Can user change the highlighting in midnight commander?

I try to make midnight commander able to highlight special words in
files with specific extension. In the directory "/usr/share/mc/syntax"
I found many files which define the highlighting roles for files with
different extension (for example file "fortran.syntax", define way of
highlighting in FORTRAN files). The problem is that I have no
permissions to write to this directory (I have only user permissions).
Moreover, I would like to define the highlighting only for me (not for
other users). Is it possible? If yes, how can I do it?

And one more question, "fortran.syntax" defines highlighting for
FORTRAN programs (it works), nut how midnight commander knows that
files with the extension ".f" are FORTRAN programs?

Thank you in advance!