$re = '/((?: |^)([\p{L}\p{M}])\2+(?= |$))|([\p{L}\p{M}])(?=\3)/u';
$str = 'aaa baaab xxx
ahhj aaab cc iiik
bbb ahhj aaab cc iiik xxx fjjj baaaaaab yyyaaa
#$aa$aa#aaa bbb
aaa aaa
test aaaaa aaaaa aaaa
aaa aaa d$test#dd!aaaa$ddd !dd#fdg5$hhaaa^%bb zzzzz
ááá áább çç ççç ábbá';
$subst = "$1";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php