diff --git a/.zshenv b/.zshenv
index 88c81d1..e064a54 100644
--- a/.zshenv
+++ b/.zshenv
@@ -30,6 +30,47 @@ export DEBEMAIL=hjp@hjp.at
 export DEB_SIGN_KEYID=4ED25B463C8FC154D8189E64F20E485112FE285D
 export ACK_COLOR_FILENAME='blue on_white'
 
+# Fix up locale. Must do this early or we get a lot of warnings if a
+# locale isn't installed.
+# Assume that locale and grep are in the PATH.
+
+case "`uname -sr`" in
+Linux*)
+	export LC_COLLATE=POSIX
+	if [ -z "$LANG" ]
+	then
+	    utf=`locale -a | grep en_US.utf8`
+	    if [ -n "$utf" ]
+	    then
+		# this is a bit of a hack -
+		# locale -a advertises the locale as "en_US.utf8",
+		# but the glibc accepts both "en_US.utf8" and
+		# "en_US.UTF-8" and xterm recogizes only the latter.
+		# So we explicitely set the latter, even though that's
+		# not the canonical name and may break some day.
+		# 
+		LANG=en_US.UTF-8
+	    else 
+		# fall back to latin 1.
+		LANG=en_US.iso88591
+	    fi
+	    export LANG
+	fi
+        for i in LANG LC_CTYPE LC_NUMERIC LC_TIME LC_COLLATE LC_MONETARY LC_MESSAGES LC_PAPER LC_NAME LC_ADDRESS LC_TELEPHONE LC_MEASUREMENT LC_IDENTIFICATION LC_ALL
+        do
+            c=$(eval "echo \$$i")
+            if [ -n "$c" ]
+            then
+                r=$(locale -a | grep "${c/UTF-8/utf8}")
+                if [ -z "$r" ]
+                then
+                    unset $i
+                fi
+            fi
+        done
+	;;
+esac
+
 
 # don't rely on a sane path at this point:
 for i in /usr/bin/preppath /usr/local/bin/preppath
@@ -65,32 +106,6 @@ then
     unsetopt NULL_GLOB
 fi
 
-case "`uname -sr`" in
-Linux*)
-	export LC_COLLATE=POSIX
-	if [ -z "$LANG" ]
-	then
-	    utf=`locale -a | grep en_US.utf8`
-	    if [ -n "$utf" ]
-	    then
-		# this is a bit of a hack -
-		# locale -a advertises the locale as "en_US.utf8",
-		# but the glibc accepts both "en_US.utf8" and
-		# "en_US.UTF-8" and xterm recogizes only the latter.
-		# So we explicitely set the latter, even though that's
-		# not the canonical name and may break some day.
-		# 
-		LANG=en_US.UTF-8
-	    else 
-		# fall back to latin 1.
-		LANG=en_US.iso88591
-	    fi
-	    export LANG
-	fi
-	# export LC_TIME=de_AT # don't remember what that was for
-	;;
-esac
-
 case "$LANG" in
 *.iso88591)
 	export LESSCHARSET=latin1