diff --git a/contrib/mkimage-arch.sh b/contrib/mkimage-arch.sh
index bbecf72903..06406fecd5 100755
--- a/contrib/mkimage-arch.sh
+++ b/contrib/mkimage-arch.sh
@@ -14,6 +14,8 @@ hash expect &>/dev/null || {
 	exit 1
 }
 
+export LANG="C.UTF-8"
+
 ROOTFS=$(mktemp -d ${TMPDIR:-/var/tmp}/rootfs-archlinux-XXXXXXXXXX)
 chmod 755 $ROOTFS