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