In some languages, like German and Dutch, you can make variants of certain letters by giving them an accent mark. A common way to enter these combined characters on a typewriter is by first typing a "dead" key which print the accent mark without moving the printers head, and then typing the letter. In AUC TeX we simulate this by marking certain keys as dead. When you press one of those keys, it will wait for another key to be pressed. To enter the accent by itself, press the dead key twice. Examples: ' e inserts `\'{e}'. ' ' inserts `''. ' i inserts `\'{\i}'.
To enable this feature, you must first specify what accents you are
interested in. This is done by setting the variable
LaTeX-dead-keys.
User Option: LaTeX-dead-keys
List of characters used as dead keys. Valid characters are `'', ``', `"', `^', and `~'. By default, all the valid characters are used.
This is best done in your `.emacs' file. Then, you simply enable the dead keys with M-x LaTeX-dead-mode.
Command: LaTeX-dead-mode
(M-x LaTeX-dead-mode) Toggle LaTeX-dead-mode.
With prefix arg, turn LaTeX-dead-mode on iff arg is positive.
This mode allows users to conveniently enter characters with accents, as found in some European languages.
The supported accents are defined by LaTeX-dead-keys. Modify
that variable to change the list of dead keys. (You most likely want to
do that).