diff --git a/Makefile.common b/Makefile.common
index 2bc3bd4f65..69f5a1dd87 100644
--- a/Makefile.common
+++ b/Makefile.common
@@ -530,7 +530,7 @@ ifeq ($(HAVE_MENU_COMMON), 1)
           menu/drivers/null.o
 endif
 
-ifeq ($(UTF8), 1)
+ifneq ($(NO_UTF8), 1)
    DEFINES += -DHAVE_UTF8
    OBJ += intl/msg_hash_ru.o
    DEFINES += -finput-charset=UTF-8
diff --git a/libretro-common/encodings/encoding_utf.c b/libretro-common/encodings/encoding_utf.c
index ad52cff818..1a151066aa 100644
--- a/libretro-common/encodings/encoding_utf.c
+++ b/libretro-common/encodings/encoding_utf.c
@@ -209,7 +209,7 @@ size_t utf8len(const char *string)
 #endif
 }
 
-uint8_t utf8_walkbyte(const char **string)
+inline uint8_t utf8_walkbyte(const char **string)
 {
    return *((*string)++);
 }
@@ -217,6 +217,7 @@ uint8_t utf8_walkbyte(const char **string)
 /* Does not validate the input, returns garbage if it's not UTF-8. */
 uint32_t utf8_walk(const char **string)
 {
+#ifdef HAVE_UTF8
    uint8_t first = utf8_walkbyte(string);
    uint32_t ret;
    
@@ -235,4 +236,7 @@ uint32_t utf8_walk(const char **string)
    if (first >= 0xE0)
       return ret | (first&15)<<12;
    return ret | (first&7)<<6;
+#else
+   return utf8_walkbyte(string);
+#endif
 }
diff --git a/libretro-common/include/encodings/utf.h b/libretro-common/include/encodings/utf.h
index 85db439d82..88585bc228 100644
--- a/libretro-common/include/encodings/utf.h
+++ b/libretro-common/include/encodings/utf.h
@@ -40,8 +40,6 @@ size_t utf8cpy(char *d, size_t d_len, const char *s, size_t chars);
 
 const char *utf8skip(const char *str, size_t chars);
 
-uint8_t utf8_walkbyte(const char **string);
-
 uint32_t utf8_walk(const char **string);
 
 #endif