diff --git a/src/Encoding.cpp b/src/Encoding.cpp
index 8041de988f..69437bf2f5 100644
--- a/src/Encoding.cpp
+++ b/src/Encoding.cpp
@@ -496,8 +496,9 @@ docstring Encodings::fromLaTeXCommand(docstring const & cmd, docstring & rem)
 			// If this is an exact match, we found a (longer)
 			// matching command in the unicodesymbols file
 			if ((math == tmp || text == tmp)
-			    && ((tmp.size() == 1 && !isAlphaASCII(tmp[0]))
-				    || k == cmdend || !isAlphaASCII(cmd[k]))) {
+			    && (tmp[0] != '\\'
+				   || (tmp.size() == 2 && !isAlphaASCII(tmp[1]))
+				   || k == cmdend || !isAlphaASCII(cmd[k]))) {
 				c = it->first;
 				j = k - 1;
 				i = j + 1;