diff --git a/common/os_calls.c b/common/os_calls.c
index 234e01c7..c58ebd60 100644
--- a/common/os_calls.c
+++ b/common/os_calls.c
@@ -136,7 +136,21 @@ g_init(const char *app_name)
 
     WSAStartup(2, &wsadata);
 #endif
-    setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "");
+
+    /* In order to get g_mbstowcs and g_wcstombs to work properly with
+       UTF-8 non-ASCII characters, LC_CTYPE cannot be "C" or blank.
+       To select UTF-8 encoding without specifying any countries/languages,
+       "C.UTF-8" is used but provided in few systems.
+
+       See also: https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/Proposals/C.UTF-8 */
+    char *lc_ctype;
+    lc_ctype = setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "C.UTF-8");
+    if (lc_ctype == NULL)
+    {
+        /* use en_US.UTF-8 instead if not available */
+        setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "en_US.UTF-8");
+    }
+
     g_mk_temp_dir(app_name);
 }