I still think alternatively / optional escaping with \ is a good idea too. Many people are used to that too (like in regex). And if we have global options, then it is easy to toggle.
I don't see any need to reserve one more character. To escape one character (or any number), you can use the same quotes directly in the text:
'text,text' <=> text','text
Why <=> ? should those two then not be equal?
In the 2nd example the first ' is directly after the "t" => so there is no space => no new sub-term starts => the current term continues. The "," is no quoted, and therefore not a separator.
That is the same as the first string?
I wonder, if it would be more "natural", if a ' in the middle of text would be an escape for the single next char?
abc 'd e f' // ' is after space, so it starts a string, and needs a closing quote (or acts till end of text)
abc d' e' f // ' are after non-space and escape the very next char only => this can only happen if there was no opening '
Would work, I can live with it. Curious what others think....