Hi,
In MediaWiki, the <nowiki> tag was created for writing characters without having them interpreted as wiki syntax. An obvious and direct use case for this is writing help pages about editing wiki pages in wiki syntax, for example:
Writing <nowiki>'''words between three apostrophes'''</nowiki> will show them in bold font: '''words between three apostrophes'''.
Another related use case is demonstrating how templates work:
<nowiki>This sentence shows the template used at the end.{{Citation needed|reason=Reliable source needed for the whole sentence|date=October 2018}}</nowiki>
However, <nowiki> has less trivial use cases, that are not quite the same as demonstrating wiki syntax. One such usage I'm aware of is linking a part of a long compound German word, for example "[[Schnee]]<nowiki />reichtum". It produces the desired effect, however it is a bit of a hack: the word "nowiki" doesn't have anything to do with dividing compound words. This use is quite common in the German Wikipedia because of the nature of the German language, which has a lot of long compound words.
Are there other languages where comparable hacks with <nowiki> exist, dictated by the nature of the language or by any local policies?
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore