diff --git a/REQUIRE b/REQUIRE
index ce3698b..0c15fa0 100644
--- a/REQUIRE
+++ b/REQUIRE
@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
 julia 0.4
-Compat 0.9.5
+Compat 0.18.0
diff --git a/src/LegacyStrings.jl b/src/LegacyStrings.jl
index b0ba0e9..44e3fd7 100644
--- a/src/LegacyStrings.jl
+++ b/src/LegacyStrings.jl
@@ -77,7 +77,7 @@ using Compat
             end
         end
 
-        typealias ByteString Union{ASCIIString,UTF8String}
+        const ByteString = Union{ASCIIString,UTF8String}
 
         include("support.jl")
         include("ascii.jl")
diff --git a/src/support.jl b/src/support.jl
index 585efff..33a2f24 100644
--- a/src/support.jl
+++ b/src/support.jl
@@ -173,7 +173,7 @@ function unsafe_checkstring(dat::AbstractVector{UInt8},
     return totalchar, flags, num4byte, num3byte, num2byte
 end
 
-typealias AbstractString1632{Tel<:Union{UInt16,UInt32}} Union{AbstractVector{Tel}, AbstractString}
+@compat AbstractString1632{Tel<:Union{UInt16,UInt32}} = Union{AbstractVector{Tel}, AbstractString}
 
 function unsafe_checkstring(
                       dat::AbstractString1632,