This feature should be easy to do.
Unfortunately my PHP knowledge is limited, so I think
it will be better if I just ask for it instead of trying to do it myself :)
Using japanese characters in non-japanese wikipedias is currently hard.
One have to write them as &#xHEXCODE; or &#DECIMALCODE;
I think that it would be much better if parser were able to parse
fake kana (at least basic kana, full kanji would be much more work) &entities;
and convert them to numeric codes.
So one can write &hiragana_wa; or &katakana_chi;
This isn't likely to conflict with anything.
Kana Unicode table (in "English") is on
http://pl.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Kana
Entities that would be needed:
* Full hiragana ぁ to ゔ
* Full katakana ァ to ヺ
* Prolongation mark ー
Proposed names:
* &hiragana_x; &hiragana_smallx;
* &katakana_x; &katakana_smallx;
* &kana_long;
I also think that it might be good idea to extend it to other writing sytems
in the future.
Is it possible ?