diff --git a/lib/linguist/classifier.rb b/lib/linguist/classifier.rb
index 8b858e45..9e7b5319 100644
--- a/lib/linguist/classifier.rb
+++ b/lib/linguist/classifier.rb
@@ -18,8 +18,6 @@ module Linguist
     #
     # Returns an Array of Language objects, most probable first.
     def self.call(blob, possible_languages)
-      return [] if blob.symlink?
-
       language_names = possible_languages.map(&:name)
       classify(Samples.cache, blob.data[0...CLASSIFIER_CONSIDER_BYTES], language_names).map do |name, _|
         Language[name] # Return the actual Language objects
diff --git a/lib/linguist/file_blob.rb b/lib/linguist/file_blob.rb
index bebebec6..f342d983 100644
--- a/lib/linguist/file_blob.rb
+++ b/lib/linguist/file_blob.rb
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ module Linguist
     end
 
     def symlink?
-      return @symlink if !@symlink.nil?
+      return @symlink if defined? @symlink
       @symlink = (File.symlink?(@fullpath) rescue false)
     end
 
diff --git a/samples/Markdown/symlink.md b/samples/Markdown/symlink.md
new file mode 120000
index 00000000..2b1c6388
--- /dev/null
+++ b/samples/Markdown/symlink.md
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+README.mdown
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/test/test_heuristics.rb b/test/test_heuristics.rb
index 5bcb5f08..ebf38dd2 100644
--- a/test/test_heuristics.rb
+++ b/test/test_heuristics.rb
@@ -13,8 +13,9 @@ class TestHeuristics < Minitest::Test
   end
 
   def all_fixtures(language_name, file="*")
-    Dir.glob("#{samples_path}/#{language_name}/#{file}") -
-      ["#{samples_path}/#{language_name}/filenames"]
+    fixs = Dir.glob("#{samples_path}/#{language_name}/#{file}") -
+             ["#{samples_path}/#{language_name}/filenames"]
+    fixs.reject { |f| File.symlink?(f) }
   end
 
   def test_no_match
@@ -23,6 +24,10 @@ class TestHeuristics < Minitest::Test
     assert_equal [], results
   end
 
+  def test_symlink_empty
+    assert_equal [], Heuristics.call(file_blob("Markdown/symlink.md"), [Language["Markdown"]])
+  end
+
   def assert_heuristics(hash)
     candidates = hash.keys.map { |l| Language[l] }
 
diff --git a/test/test_language.rb b/test/test_language.rb
index 6589891a..ecb94ab8 100644
--- a/test/test_language.rb
+++ b/test/test_language.rb
@@ -473,4 +473,10 @@ class TestLanguage < Minitest::Test
     assert_nil Language.find_by_name(',')
     assert_nil Language.find_by_alias(',')
   end
+
+  def test_detect_prefers_markdown_for_md
+    blob = Linguist::FileBlob.new(File.join(samples_path, "Markdown/symlink.md"))
+    match = Linguist.detect(blob)
+    assert_equal Language["Markdown"], match
+  end
 end