diff --git a/gramps/gen/utils/maclocale.py b/gramps/gen/utils/maclocale.py
index 7d3ede4d3..3eb3de435 100644
--- a/gramps/gen/utils/maclocale.py
+++ b/gramps/gen/utils/maclocale.py
@@ -241,6 +241,9 @@ def mac_setup_localization(glocale):
         coll_parts = glocale.collation.split('@')
         glocale.lang = glocale.check_available_translations(coll_parts[0])
 
+    if not glocale.lang:
+        glocale.lang = "en_US.UTF-8"
+
     glocale.lang = locale.normalize(glocale.lang)
     if not glocale.lang.split('.')[1].lower() in ['utf8', 'utf-8']:
         LOG.debug('Forcing locale encoding to UTF-8')