diff --git a/gettext.c b/gettext.c
index 7ae5caed42..db99742bc4 100644
--- a/gettext.c
+++ b/gettext.c
@@ -17,6 +17,5 @@ extern void git_setup_gettext(void) {
 	}
 
 	(void)setlocale(LC_MESSAGES, "");
-	(void)setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "");
 	(void)textdomain("git");
 }
diff --git a/t/t0203-gettext-setlocale-sanity.sh b/t/t0203-gettext-setlocale-sanity.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..a212460081
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/t0203-gettext-setlocale-sanity.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+#
+# Copyright (c) 2010 Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
+#
+
+test_description="The Git C functions aren't broken by setlocale(3)"
+
+. ./lib-gettext.sh
+
+test_expect_success 'git show a ISO-8859-1 commit under C locale' '
+	. "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t3901-8859-1.txt &&
+	test_commit "iso-c-commit" iso-under-c &&
+	git show >out 2>err &&
+	! test -s err &&
+	grep -q "iso-c-commit" out
+'
+
+test_expect_success GETTEXT_LOCALE 'git show a ISO-8859-1 commit under a UTF-8 locale' '
+	. "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t3901-8859-1.txt &&
+	test_commit "iso-utf8-commit" iso-under-utf8 &&
+	LANGUAGE=is LC_ALL="$is_IS_locale" git show >out 2>err &&
+	! test -s err &&
+	grep -q "iso-utf8-commit" out
+'
+
+test_done