a) escape is spelt escape
b) for the time being, it is possible to get something that looks right using Unicode characters U+2044 / U+2215. Obviously this also makes linking to it slightly more difficult.
c) It seems to me that the user might want to differentiate between links to a namespaced and non-namespaced page. So while the property idea may be adequate as far as it goes, once you have this distinction in place I think a different styling for hierarchical links and non-hierarchical links would be more necessary.