I'm not sure about the origin, but I believe they are some glyphs originally introduced for vim's powerline (https://github.com/powerline/powerline https://gith

I'm not sure about the origin, but I believe they are some glyphs originally introduced for vim's powerline (https://github.com/powerline/powerline https://github.com/powerline/powerline you can see some pics there with the glyphs in use) that allow for cool looking status bars etc on the terminal.