Iteration marks are characters or punctuation marks that represent a duplicated character or word.
Chinese In Chinese, a smaller version of the character 二 (meaning "two"), as 𖿣 (U+16FE3 𖿣 OLD CHINESE ITERATION MARK), is used in casual writing to represent a doubled character, alongside 〻 and 々. However, it is not used in formal writing anymore, and it rarely appeared in printed matter. In a tabulated table or list, vertical repetition can be represented by a ditto mark (〃).
History Iteration marks have been occasionally used for more than two thousand years in China. The example image shows an inscription in bronze script, a variety of formal writing dating to the Zhou dynasty, that ends with "子二孫二寶用", where 二 is used as iteration marks in the phrase "子子孫孫寶用" ("descendants to use and to treasure").
Malayo-Polynesian languages
In Filipino, Indonesian, and Malay, words that are repeated can be shortened with the use of numeral "2". For example, the Malay kata-kata ("words", from single kata) can be shortened to kata2, and jalan-jalan ("to walk around", from single jalan) can be shortened to jalan2. The usage of "2" can be also replaced with superscript "2" (e.g. kata2 for kata2). The sign may also be used for reduplicated compound words with slight sound changes, for example hingar2 for hingar-bingar ("commotion"). Suffixes may be added after "2", for example in the word kebarat2an ("Western in nature", from the basic word barat ("West") with the prefix ke- and suffix -an). The use of this mark dates back to the time when these languages were written with Arabic script, specifically the Jawi or Pegon varieties. Using the Arabic numeral ٢, words such as رام رام (rama-rama, butterfly) can be shortened to رام٢. The use of Arabic numeral ٢ was also adapted to several Brahmi derived scripts of the Malay archipelago, notably Javanese, Sundanese, Lontara, and Makassaran. As the Latin alphabet was introduced to the region, the Western-style Arabic numeral "2" came to be use for Latin-based orthography. The use of "2" as an iteration mark was official in Indonesia up to 1972, as part of the Republican Spelling System. Its usage was discouraged when the Enhanced Indonesian Spelling System was adopted, and even though it is commonly found in handwriting, old signage or text messages, it is considered to be inappropriate for formal writing and documents.
Japanese Japanese has various iteration marks for its three writing systems, namely kanji, hiragana, and katakana, but only the kanji iteration mark (々) is commonly used today. In Japanese, iteration marks called odoriji (踊り字, "dancing mark"), kasaneji (重ね字), kurikaeshikigō (繰り返し記号), or hanpukukigō (反復記号, "repetition symbols") are used to represent a duplicated character representing the same morpheme. For example, hitobito, "people", is usually written 人々, using the kanji for 人 with an iteration mark, 々, rather than 人人, using the same kanji twice. The use of two kanji in place of an iteration mark is allowed, and in simple cases may be used due to being easier to write. In contrast, while hibi (日々, "daily, day after day") is written with the iteration mark, as the morpheme is duplicated, hinichi (日日, "number of days, date") is written with the character duplicated, because it represents different morphemes (hi and nichi). Further, while hibi can in principle be written as 日日, hinichi cannot be written as 日々, since that would imply repetition of the sound as well as the character. In potentially confusing examples such as this, readings can be disambiguated by writing words out in hiragana, so hinichi is often found as 日にち or ひにち rather than 日日. Sound changes can occur in duplication, which is not reflected in writing; examples include hito (人) and hito (人) being pronounced hitobito (人々) (rendaku) or koku (刻) and koku (刻) being pronounced kokkoku (刻々) (gemination), though this is also pronounced kokukoku.
Kanji
The formal name of the kanji repetition symbol (々) is dōnojiten (同の字点), literally "same character mark", but it is sometimes called noma (のま) because it looks like the katakana no (ノ) and ma (マ). This symbol originates from a simplified form of the character 仝, a variant of "same" (同) written in the cursive script style. Although Japanese kanji iteration marks are borrowed from Chinese, the grammatical function of duplication differs, as do the conventions on the use of these characters. While Japanese does not have a grammatical plural form per se, some kanji can be reduplicated to indicate plurality (as a collective noun, not many individuals). This differs from Chinese, which normally repeats characters only for the purposes of adding emphasis, although there are some exceptions (e.g., 人, rén, "person"; 人人, rénrén, "everybody").
hito (人, person); hitobito (人々, people (not "persons")) yama (山, mountain); yamayama (山々, many mountains) However, for some words duplication may alter the meaning:
ko (個, piece, object); koko (個々, piece by piece; individually) toki (時, time); tokidoki (時々, sometimes) yokujitsu (翌日, next day); yokuyokujitsu (翌々日, lit. "next next day" (two days later)) Using 々 instead of repeating kanji is usually the preferred form, with two restrictions:
the reading must be the same, possibly with sound change (as above), and the repetition must be within a single word. When the reading is different, the second kanji is often simply written out to avoid confusion. Examples of such include:
hinichi (日日 日にち) yutanpo (湯湯婆 湯たんぽ) dedashi (出出し 出だし) The repetition mark is not used in every case where two identical characters appear side by side, but only where the repetition itself is etymologically significant—when the repetition is part of a single word. Where a character ends up appearing twice as part of a compound, it is usually written out in full:
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