diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index fca9b552200..1ffa307782a 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -143,6 +143,8 @@ Core and builtins
 Extension Modules
 -----------------
 
+- Patch #1213831: Fix typo in unicodedata._getcode.
+
 - Bug #1007046: os.startfile() did not accept unicode strings encoded in
   the file system encoding.
 
diff --git a/Modules/unicodedata.c b/Modules/unicodedata.c
index 021bacf7b6a..be966f09645 100644
--- a/Modules/unicodedata.c
+++ b/Modules/unicodedata.c
@@ -820,7 +820,7 @@ _getcode(const char* name, int namelen, Py_UCS4* code)
 	pos += len;
 	find_syllable(pos, &len, &T, TCount, 2);
 	pos += len;
-	if (V != -1 && V != -1 && T != -1 && pos-name == namelen) {
+	if (L != -1 && V != -1 && T != -1 && pos-name == namelen) {
 	    *code = SBase + (L*VCount+V)*TCount + T;
 	    return 1;
 	}