Use NULL instead of "" to prevent overriding locale information set in the environment. See http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=64266 http://lists.debian.or.jp/debian-devel/200210/msg00047.html diff -urN bash-2.05b.orig/lib/readline/nls.c bash-2.05b/lib/readline/nls.c --- bash-2.05b.orig/lib/readline/nls.c 2001-10-15 14:32:29.000000000 -0400 +++ bash-2.05b/lib/readline/nls.c 2004-09-29 12:25:24.585683597 -0400 @@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ char *t; /* Set the LC_CTYPE locale category from environment variables. */ - t = setlocale (LC_CTYPE, ""); + t = setlocale (LC_CTYPE, NULL); if (t && *t && (t[0] != 'C' || t[1]) && (STREQ (t, "POSIX") == 0)) { _rl_meta_flag = 1;