diff --git a/src/celestia/qt/qtappwin.cpp b/src/celestia/qt/qtappwin.cpp
index f6107a0d85..ea7c373aa5 100644
--- a/src/celestia/qt/qtappwin.cpp
+++ b/src/celestia/qt/qtappwin.cpp
@@ -227,6 +227,14 @@ void CelestiaAppWindow::init(const CelestiaCommandLineOptions& options)
             exit(1);
     }
 
+#ifdef ENABLE_NLS
+    bindtextdomain("celestia", "locale");
+    bind_textdomain_codeset("celestia", "UTF-8");
+    bindtextdomain("celestia-data", "locale");
+    bind_textdomain_codeset("celestia-data", "UTF-8");
+    textdomain("celestia");
+#endif
+
     // Get the config file name
     string configFileName;
     if (!options.configFileName.isEmpty())
diff --git a/src/celestia/sdl/sdlmain.cpp b/src/celestia/sdl/sdlmain.cpp
index 4f86c028d9..33e21cca99 100644
--- a/src/celestia/sdl/sdlmain.cpp
+++ b/src/celestia/sdl/sdlmain.cpp
@@ -653,11 +653,13 @@ sdlmain(int /* argc */, char ** /* argv */)
 {
     setlocale(LC_ALL, "");
     setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, "C");
+#ifdef ENABLE_NLS
     bindtextdomain("celestia", LOCALEDIR);
     bind_textdomain_codeset("celestia", "UTF-8");
     bindtextdomain("celestia-data", LOCALEDIR);
     bind_textdomain_codeset("celestia-data", "UTF-8");
     textdomain("celestia");
+#endif
 
     const char *dataDir = getenv("CELESTIA_DATA_DIR");
     if (dataDir == nullptr)