diff --git a/lib/languages b/lib/languages
index 74ca19a100..c614065ce6 100644
--- a/lib/languages
+++ b/lib/languages
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ galician    galician	"Galician"	false  iso8859-15 gl_ES	 ""
 german      german	"German (old spelling)"	false  iso8859-15 de_DE	 ""
 ngerman     ngerman	"German"	false  iso8859-15 de_DE	 ""
 greek       greek	"Greek"		false  iso8859-7  el_GR	 ""
-polutonikogreek polutonikogreek	"Greek (polytonic)"	false  iso8859-7  el_GR	 "\addto\extraspolutonikogreek{\let\~\char126}\addto\extrasgreek{\let\~\char126}"
+polutonikogreek polutonikogreek	"Greek (polytonic)"	false  iso8859-7  el_GR	 "\providecommand*{\perispomeni}{\char126}\addto\extraspolutonikogreek{\let\~\perispomeni}\addto\extrasgreek{\let\~\perispomeni}"
 hebrew      hebrew	"Hebrew"	true   cp1255     he_IL	 ""
 # "hungarian" is a synonym for the "magyar" babel language option
 # "hungarian" might be used for special purposes, see http://www.math.bme.hu/latex/magyar_pre_tug2004.pdf
diff --git a/src/LaTeXFeatures.cpp b/src/LaTeXFeatures.cpp
index b704954e90..8509bd30eb 100644
--- a/src/LaTeXFeatures.cpp
+++ b/src/LaTeXFeatures.cpp
@@ -189,9 +189,10 @@ static string const changetracking_none_def =
 	"\\newcommand{\\lyxdeleted}[3]{}\n";
 
 static string const textgreek_def =
+	"\\providecommand*{\\perispomeni}{\\char126}\n"
 	"\\AtBeginDocument{\\DeclareRobustCommand{\\greektext}{%\n"
 	"  \\fontencoding{LGR}\\selectfont\\def\\encodingdefault{LGR}%\n"
-	"  \\renewcommand{\\~}{\\char126}%\n"
+	"  \\renewcommand{\\~}{\\perispomeni}%\n"
 	"}}\n"
 	"\\DeclareRobustCommand{\\textgreek}[1]{\\leavevmode{\\greektext #1}}\n"
 	"\\DeclareFontEncoding{LGR}{}{}\n";
diff --git a/status.16x b/status.16x
index fd4355dfcd..4dd30bdeeb 100644
--- a/status.16x
+++ b/status.16x
@@ -96,6 +96,8 @@ What's new
 
 - LaTeX import (tex2lyx) now also recognizes the document language Kazakh.
 
+- Fix polytonic Greek macro definition.
+
 
 * USER INTERFACE