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A dead key is a special kind of modifier key on a mechanical typewriter, or computer keyboard, that is typically used to attach a specific diacritic to a base letter.[1] The dead key does not generate a (complete) character by itself, but modifies the character generated by the key struck immediately after. Thus, a dedicated key is not needed for each possible combination of a diacritic and a letter, but rather only one dead key for each diacritic is needed, in addition to the normal base letter keys.
For example, if a keyboard mapping (such as US international) has a dead key for the circumflex, ^, the character â can be generated by first pressing ^ and then a.[2]
Usually, the diacritic itself can be generated as a free-standing character by pressing the dead key followed by space; so a caret (free-standing circumflex) can be typed by pressing ^ and then Space.
^"Dead Key | Definition of Dead Key by Merriam-Webster". Merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2017-05-01.
^The Unicode Standard, version 8.0.0, ch.05, §12 Strategies for Handling Nonspacing Marks: Keyboard Input | https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode8.0.0/ch05.pdf#G1076
A deadkey is a special kind of modifier key on a mechanical typewriter, or computer keyboard, that is typically used to attach a specific diacritic to...
typewriters, combined characters such as é and õ were created by the use of deadkeys for the diacritics (′, ~), which did not move the paper forward. Thus...
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possible ways to type these: keys can be dedicated to precomposed characters (with the diacritic included); alternatively a deadkey mechanism can be provided...
more extensive 'dead-key' facility. Other operating systems can optionally re-map the keyboard layout or have different modifier keys (for example the...
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operating systems, an input method is also used to define the behavior of the deadkeys. Although originally coined for CJK (Chinese, Japanese and Korean) computing...
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an alternate character, typically a precomposed character or a symbol; deadkeys typically used to attach a specific diacritic to a base letter; or indeed...
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