Use a character other than the backslash for commands

Question

I happen to author LaTeX code in an environment that makes entering the backslash tedious¹.

Can I somehow tell LaTeX: From now on, treat, | (or another rarely used character) as if it were a \, so that I can write my LaTeX code like

This is a |emph{very} important fact from |cite{some_paper}.

and get the same result as if I had written

This is a \emph{very} important fact from \cite{some_paper}

while normal command with \ still work as before (as they are inserted automatically by the authoring tools in certain places)?

Bonus points if I can use some unicode character (like ✓, which happens to be bound on my keyboard), to reduce the risk of clashes.

¹ ^{Don’t ask why. Oh, you did? Well: I edit in Isabelle/jEdit, which replaces sequences like \c with special unicode characters, which is nice when working on Isabelle theories, but makes writing the documenting TeX code a pain.}

Answer 1

Simply adding

\catcode`\|=0 %

will enable | as an escape character, for example

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\begin{document}
\catcode`\|=0 %

\begin{itemize}
  \item An itemize
|end{itemize}

|emph{stuff}

\end{document}

This won't work with for example verbatim material (where \ is 'baked in' to the code).

Answer 2

with xelatex you can choose a character which isn't used in the LaTeX packages (AltGr-4) :

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\catcode`\¼=0
\begin{document}
This is a \emph{very} important fact

This is a ¼emph{very} important fact
\end{document}