I've created a <charinsert> extension which produces the little javascript inserter bits for the characters you feed it. This can be used in wikitext, such as the 'copyrightwarning' messages which was previously HTML.
I set up the English Wikipedia chars again using this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning
Please feel free to set up the appropriate equivalents at the other 'pedias, 'tionaries, and all.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)