diff --git a/lib/rdoc/ruby_lex.rb b/lib/rdoc/ruby_lex.rb
index 845569b0bc..313e69ea47 100644
--- a/lib/rdoc/ruby_lex.rb
+++ b/lib/rdoc/ruby_lex.rb
@@ -857,7 +857,7 @@ def identify_gvar
   end
 
   IDENT_RE = if defined? Encoding then
-               /[\w\u0080-\uFFFF]/u
+               eval '/[\w\u{0080}-\u{FFFFF}]/u' # 1.8 can't parse \u{}
              else
                /[\w\x80-\xFF]/
              end
diff --git a/test/test_rdoc_ruby_lex.rb b/test/test_rdoc_ruby_lex.rb
index 1dc11e95a3..dfa350e018 100644
--- a/test/test_rdoc_ruby_lex.rb
+++ b/test/test_rdoc_ruby_lex.rb
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+# coding: UTF-8
+
 require 'rdoc/test_case'
 
 class TestRDocRubyLex < RDoc::TestCase
@@ -133,6 +135,14 @@ def test_class_tokenize_heredoc_percent_N
     assert_equal expected, tokens
   end
 
+  def test_class_tokenize_identifier_high_unicode
+    tokens = RDoc::RubyLex.tokenize '𝖒', nil
+
+    expected = @TK::TkIDENTIFIER.new(0, 1, 0, '𝖒')
+
+    assert_equal expected, tokens.first
+  end
+
   def test_class_tokenize_percent_1
     tokens = RDoc::RubyLex.tokenize 'v%10==10', nil