diff --git a/llama.cpp b/llama.cpp
index b73281d03..af005c12c 100644
--- a/llama.cpp
+++ b/llama.cpp
@@ -12200,12 +12200,14 @@ struct llm_tokenizer_bpe {
 
     void tokenize(const std::string & text, std::vector<llama_vocab::id> & output) {
         int final_prev_index = -1;
+        int ignore_merges = false;
 
         std::vector<std::string> word_collection;
         switch (vocab.type) {
             case LLAMA_VOCAB_TYPE_BPE:
                 switch (vocab.type_pre) {
                     case LLAMA_VOCAB_PRE_TYPE_LLAMA3:
+                        ignore_merges = true;
                     case LLAMA_VOCAB_PRE_TYPE_DBRX:
                         word_collection = unicode_regex_split(text, {
                             // original regex from tokenizer.json
@@ -12292,7 +12294,7 @@ struct llm_tokenizer_bpe {
         symbols_final.clear();
 
         for (auto & word : word_collection) {
-            if (vocab.token_to_id.find(word) != vocab.token_to_id.end()) {
+            if (ignore_merges && vocab.token_to_id.find(word) != vocab.token_to_id.end()) {
                 llm_symbol sym;
                 sym.text = word.c_str();
                 sym.n = word.size();
diff --git a/tests/test-tokenizer-1-bpe.cpp b/tests/test-tokenizer-1-bpe.cpp
index 015d6a2e4..63e261d8d 100644
--- a/tests/test-tokenizer-1-bpe.cpp
+++ b/tests/test-tokenizer-1-bpe.cpp
@@ -13,15 +13,27 @@
 #include <vector>
 
 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
-    if (argc < 2) {
-        fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <vocab-file>\n", argv[0]);
+    if (argc < 2 || argc > 3) {
+        fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <vocab-file> [--ignore-merges]\n", argv[0]);
         return 1;
     }
 
     const std::string fname = argv[1];
+    bool ignore_merges = false;
+    if (argc == 3) {
+        if (std::strcmp(argv[2], "ignore-merges") != 0) {
+            fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <vocab-file> [--ignore-merges]\n", argv[0]);
+            return 1;
+        }
+        ignore_merges = true;
+    }
 
     fprintf(stderr, "%s : reading vocab from: '%s'\n", __func__, fname.c_str());
 
+    if (ignore_merges) {
+        fprintf(stderr, "%s : ignoring merges for tokens inside vocab\n", __func__);
+    }
+
     llama_model * model;
     llama_context * ctx;
 
@@ -66,7 +78,7 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv) {
         try {
             auto cps = unicode_cpts_from_utf8(str);
             std::vector<llama_token> tokens = llama_tokenize(ctx, str, false, true);
-            if (tokens.size() > 1) {
+            if (ignore_merges && tokens.size() > 1) {
                 fprintf(stderr,
                         "%s : error: token %d detokenizes to '%s'(%zu) but "
                         "tokenization of this to multiple tokens: [",
@@ -76,6 +88,7 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv) {
                     fprintf(stderr, ", %d", tokens[i]);
                 }
                 fprintf(stderr, "]\n");
+                return 2;
             }
             std::string check = llama_detokenize_bpe(ctx, tokens);
             if (check != str) {