diff --git a/pkgs/development/python-modules/ftfy/default.nix b/pkgs/development/python-modules/ftfy/default.nix
index d88c894009c1..ca1c9a09e4eb 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/python-modules/ftfy/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/python-modules/ftfy/default.nix
@@ -7,18 +7,23 @@
 , python
 , isPy3k
 }:
+
 buildPythonPackage rec {
-  name = "${pname}-${version}";
   pname = "ftfy";
-  # latest is 5.1.1, buy spaCy requires 4.4.3
-  version = "5.3.0";
+
+  version = "4.4.3";
+  # ftfy v5 only supports python3. Since at the moment the only
+  # packages that use ftfy are spacy and textacy which both support
+  # python 2 and 3, they have pinned ftfy to the v4 branch.
+  # I propose to stick to v4 until another package requires v5.
+  # At that point we can make a ftfy_v4 package.
 
   src = fetchPypi {
     inherit pname version;
-    sha256 = "0ba702d5138f9b35df32b55920c9466208608108f1f3d5de1a68c17e3d68cb7f";
+    sha256 = "152xdb56rhs1q4r0ck1n557sbphw7zq18r75a7kkd159ckdnc01w";
   };
 
-  propagatedBuildInputs = [ html5lib wcwidth];
+  propagatedBuildInputs = [ html5lib wcwidth ];
 
   checkInputs = [
     nose
@@ -32,13 +37,10 @@ buildPythonPackage rec {
   # FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'ftfy'
   doCheck = false;
 
-  # "this version of ftfy is no longer written for Python 2"
-  disabled = !isPy3k;
-
   meta = with stdenv.lib; {
     description = "Given Unicode text, make its representation consistent and possibly less broken.";
     homepage = https://github.com/LuminosoInsight/python-ftfy/tree/master/tests;
     license = licenses.mit;
-    maintainers = with maintainers; [ sdll ];
-    };
+    maintainers = with maintainers; [ sdll aborsu ];
+  };
 }