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Is there a convention for typing the 匕-like iteration symbol seen here (several times near the center of the page, excluding the header)?

This is one of five iteration symbols I've come across in Hokkien & Taioanese texts. The others are:

〻 (dedicated Unicode node, but the representation in some fonts leaves much to be desired)

〱

⺀

々

It seems that the other four symbols have Unicode representation. Only the 匕-like one — typically more like ヒ — doesn't seem to. (Is that because it's regional? Does anybody know if it occurs outside the Hokkien-Teochew or Formosa Strait region?) Did it evolve from (卑履切) 匕?

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I won't say these types of symbols have never been used in Chinese, but they are not a normal thing to use. I wouldn't be suprised if many don't know them at all-- I only recognize some of them from Japanese. Although I haven't seen it maybe in casual handwriting?

Keep in mind, Japanese only uses Chinese characters for a part of their writing system. It makes sense to have a character similar to the simpler forms of their system to speed up writing. In chinese, it doesn't really make sense to specially skip one single character of eight strokes, just to immediately write another twenty characters anyway.

Hopefully this can help make it clear why such a symbol isn't really used.

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  • Repeater symbols are not used in (modern) Standard Chinese, but they seem to have been pretty common in pre-modern Chinese (in the broadest sense) writings.
    – KIRINPUTRA
    Mar 19 at 8:08
  • @KIRINPUTRA do you have a source for that? I am not an expert so maybe I've missed it, however I've never seen that it was used in the past commonly. Generally from my experience chinese tended to simplify everything into cursive or individual alternate characters rather than a repeat symbol.
    – zagrycha
    Mar 19 at 14:34
  • Your comment intrigues me. Do you mean that you have seen many pre-modern Chinese writings — whether scans or on paper, but not digitized according to the modern Chinese standards — and rarely seen any of the repeaters?
    – KIRINPUTRA
    Mar 21 at 11:49
  • (LĒ-KÈNG-KÌ has repeaters on almost every page. ↓ )
    – KIRINPUTRA
    Mar 21 at 12:02
  • ctext.org/…
    – KIRINPUTRA
    Mar 21 at 12:03
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As far as I know, they are deprecated symbols(not characters) and no more recommended to use in standard Chinese. They may still occur in some calligraphy work or in private notes.

https://zi.tools/ is a very good website to search the encodings, usages and other miscs for all kinds of logograms. For example, https://zi.tools/zi/%E3%80%85

Avoid using them (in daily life) unless necessary (for academic reason or so). If you mean to type it, there is a very useful input method called Rime which is highly customizable.

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  • That is an excellent website. And I've never heard of Rime. Thanks. 　 Standard Chinese was the farthest thing from my mind, actually.
    – KIRINPUTRA
    Mar 21 at 11:53
  • @KIRINPUTRA if you find my answer helpful, don't hesitate to upvote it (as well as other answers), this will draw more attenion of the community to this very question and you may likely get more help.
    – sicheng mao
    Mar 23 at 9:13

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