diff --git a/configure.in b/configure.in
index 3f9fddb..0695f42 100644
--- a/configure.in
+++ b/configure.in
@@ -421,6 +421,7 @@ AC_CHECK_HEADERS(ncurses/termcap.h)
 AC_CHECK_LIB(termcap, initscr, HAVE_TERMCAP="termcap")
 AC_CHECK_LIB(curses, initscr, HAVE_TERMCAP="curses")
 AC_CHECK_LIB(ncurses, initscr, HAVE_TERMCAP="ncurses")
+AC_CHECK_HEADERS(langinfo.h, AC_CHECK_FUNCS(nl_langinfo))
 
 AM_ICONV
 
diff --git a/frontend/parse.c b/frontend/parse.c
index 752613f..99dc032 100644
--- a/frontend/parse.c
+++ b/frontend/parse.c
@@ -70,9 +70,11 @@ char   *strchr(), *strrchr();
 #ifdef HAVE_ICONV
 #include <iconv.h>
 #include <errno.h>
+#ifdef HAVE_LANGINFO_H
 #include <locale.h>
 #include <langinfo.h>
 #endif
+#endif
 
 #if defined _ALLOW_INTERNAL_OPTIONS
 #define INTERNAL_OPTS 1
@@ -146,6 +148,18 @@ strlenMultiByte(char const* str, size_t w)
     return n;
 }
 
+static char*
+currentCharacterEncoding()
+{
+#ifdef HAVE_LANGINFO_H
+    char* cur_code = nl_langinfo(CODESET);
+#else
+    char* env_lang = getenv("LANG");
+    char* xxx_code = env_lang == NULL ? NULL : strrchr(env_lang, '.');
+    char* cur_code = xxx_code == NULL ? "" : xxx_code+1;
+#endif
+    return cur_code;
+}
 
 static size_t
 currCharCodeSize(void)
@@ -153,7 +167,7 @@ currCharCodeSize(void)
     size_t n = 1;
     char dst[32];
     char* src = "A";
-    char* cur_code = nl_langinfo(CODESET);
+    char* cur_code = currentCharacterEncoding();
     iconv_t xiconv = iconv_open(cur_code, "ISO_8859-1");
     if (xiconv != (iconv_t)-1) {
         for (n = 0; n < 32; ++n) {
@@ -181,7 +195,7 @@ char* fromLatin1( char* src )
         size_t const n = l*4;
         dst = calloc(n+4, 4);
         if (dst != 0) {
-            char* cur_code = nl_langinfo(CODESET);
+            char* cur_code = currentCharacterEncoding();
             iconv_t xiconv = iconv_open(cur_code, "ISO_8859-1");
             if (xiconv != (iconv_t)-1) {
                 char* i_ptr = src;
@@ -205,7 +219,7 @@ char* fromUtf16( char* src )
         size_t const n = l*4;
         dst = calloc(n+4, 4);
         if (dst != 0) {
-            char* cur_code = nl_langinfo(CODESET);
+            char* cur_code = currentCharacterEncoding();
             iconv_t xiconv = iconv_open(cur_code, "UTF-16LE");
             if (xiconv != (iconv_t)-1) {
                 char* i_ptr = (char*)src;
@@ -231,7 +245,7 @@ char* toLatin1( char* src )
         size_t const n = l*4;
         dst = calloc(n+4, 4);
         if (dst != 0) {
-            char* cur_code = nl_langinfo(CODESET);
+            char* cur_code = currentCharacterEncoding();
             iconv_t xiconv = iconv_open("ISO_8859-1//TRANSLIT", cur_code);
             if (xiconv != (iconv_t)-1) {
                 char* i_ptr = (char*)src;
@@ -257,7 +271,7 @@ char* toUtf16( char* src )
         size_t const n = (l+1)*4;
         dst = calloc(n+4, 4);
         if (dst != 0) {
-            char* cur_code = nl_langinfo(CODESET);
+            char* cur_code = currentCharacterEncoding();
             iconv_t xiconv = iconv_open("UTF-16LE//TRANSLIT", cur_code);
             dst[0] = 0xff;
             dst[1] = 0xfe;
@@ -1513,7 +1527,7 @@ parse_args_(lame_global_flags * gfp, int argc, char **argv,
     enum TextEncoding id3_tenc = TENC_LATIN1;
 #endif
 
-#ifdef HAVE_ICONV
+#ifdef HAVE_LANGINFO_H
     setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "");
 #endif
     inPath[0] = '\0';