diff --git a/gtk/gtkcomposetable.c b/gtk/gtkcomposetable.c
index 538003923a..a369abbd90 100644
--- a/gtk/gtkcomposetable.c
+++ b/gtk/gtkcomposetable.c
@@ -231,7 +231,7 @@ parse_compose_sequence (const char *seq,
       char *start = words[i];
       char *end = strchr (words[i], '>');
       char *match;
-      gunichar codepoint;
+      guint keyval;
 
       if (words[i][0] == '\0')
              continue;
@@ -248,18 +248,24 @@ parse_compose_sequence (const char *seq,
 
       if (is_codepoint (match))
         {
-          codepoint = (gunichar) g_ascii_strtoll (match + 1, NULL, 16);
-          sequence[n] = codepoint;
+          keyval = gdk_unicode_to_keyval ((gunichar) g_ascii_strtoll (match + 1, NULL, 16));
+          if (keyval > 0xffff)
+            g_warning ("Can't handle >16bit keyvals");
+
+          sequence[n] = (guint16) keyval;
           sequence[n + 1] = 0;
         }
       else
         {
-          codepoint = (gunichar) gdk_keyval_from_name (match);
-          sequence[n] = codepoint;
+          keyval = gdk_keyval_from_name (match);
+          if (keyval > 0xffff)
+            g_warning ("Can't handle >16bit keyvals");
+
+          sequence[n] = (guint16) keyval;
           sequence[n + 1] = 0;
         }
 
-      if (codepoint == GDK_KEY_VoidSymbol)
+      if (keyval == GDK_KEY_VoidSymbol)
         g_warning ("Could not get code point of keysym %s", match);
       g_free (match);
       n++;