diff --git a/gettext.c b/gettext.c
index 8d08a61f8487dc..27a3e68e0315eb 100644
--- a/gettext.c
+++ b/gettext.c
@@ -102,6 +102,21 @@ static void init_gettext_charset(const char *domain)
 		setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "C");
 }
 
+static void git_setup_gettext_no_podir(void)
+{
+	setlocale(LC_TIME, "");
+}
+
+static void git_setup_gettext_podir(const char *podir)
+{
+	bindtextdomain("git", podir);
+	setlocale(LC_MESSAGES, "");
+	init_gettext_charset("git");
+	textdomain("git");
+
+	git_gettext_enabled = 1;
+}
+
 int git_gettext_enabled = 0;
 
 void git_setup_gettext(void)
@@ -112,19 +127,12 @@ void git_setup_gettext(void)
 	if (!podir)
 		podir = p = system_path(GIT_LOCALE_PATH);
 
-	if (!is_directory(podir)) {
-		free(p);
-		return;
-	}
-
-	bindtextdomain("git", podir);
-	setlocale(LC_MESSAGES, "");
-	setlocale(LC_TIME, "");
-	init_gettext_charset("git");
-	textdomain("git");
-
-	git_gettext_enabled = 1;
+	if (!is_directory(podir))
+		goto done;
 
+	git_setup_gettext_no_podir();
+	git_setup_gettext_podir(podir);
+done:
 	free(p);
 }
 
diff --git a/t/t0203-gettext-setlocale-sanity.sh b/t/t0203-gettext-setlocale-sanity.sh
index 0ce1f22eff6628..4e54ca0badb5ec 100755
--- a/t/t0203-gettext-setlocale-sanity.sh
+++ b/t/t0203-gettext-setlocale-sanity.sh
@@ -23,4 +23,14 @@ test_expect_success GETTEXT_LOCALE 'git show a ISO-8859-1 commit under a UTF-8 l
 	grep -q "iso-utf8-commit" out
 '
 
+test_expect_success GETTEXT_LOCALE 'the %c date format works even without a localedir (LC_TIME)' '
+	LANGUAGE=is LC_ALL="$is_IS_locale" GIT_TEXTDOMAINDIR="$PWD/nonexisting" \
+		git log --pretty=format:%ad --date=format:%c HEAD^1..HEAD >actual &&
+
+	# Avoid testing the raw format (it might differ?). But
+	# Thursday is Fimmtudagur in Icelandic, so grepping "fim" is
+	# pretty certain to test that the locale was used.
+	grep -iF fim actual
+'
+
 test_done