diff --git a/main.c b/main.c
index 5f0a9eb..c409d0a 100644
--- a/main.c
+++ b/main.c
@@ -65,6 +65,7 @@
  *
  */
 
+#include <locale.h>
 #include <stdio.h>
 #include <stdlib.h>
 #include <string.h>
@@ -140,6 +141,8 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv)
 	int errflag;		/* C error processing? */
 	bname_t bname ;	/* buffer name of file to read */
 
+	setlocale( LC_CTYPE, "") ;	/* wide character support (UTF-32) */
+
 #if	PKCODE & BSD
 	sleep(1); /* Time for window manager. */
 #endif
diff --git a/utf8.c b/utf8.c
index 181f6ac..f06b7ac 100644
--- a/utf8.c
+++ b/utf8.c
@@ -11,8 +11,12 @@
  * Display width of UTF-8 character
  */
 unsigned utf8_width( unicode_t c) {
+#ifdef CYGWIN
 	assert( sizeof( wchar_t) == 2) ;	/* wcwidth only handle UTF-16 */
 	return (c < 0x10000) ? (unsigned) wcwidth( (wchar_t) c) : 2 ;
+#else
+	return (unsigned) wcwidth( (wchar_t) c) ;
+#endif
 }
 
 /*