diff --git a/capplets/keyboard/gnome-keyboard-properties-xkb.c b/capplets/keyboard/gnome-keyboard-properties-xkb.c

index 4ac249d..02f33e5 100644

--- a/capplets/keyboard/gnome-keyboard-properties-xkb.c

+++ b/capplets/keyboard/gnome-keyboard-properties-xkb.c

@@ -48,8 +48,14 @@ char *

 xci_desc_to_utf8 (XklConfigItem * ci)

 {

 	char *sd = g_strstrip (ci->description);

-	return sd[0] == 0 ? g_strdup (ci->name) :

-	    g_locale_to_utf8 (sd, -1, NULL, NULL, NULL);

+	if (sd[0] == 0) {

+		return g_strdup (ci->name);

+	} else if (g_utf8_validate (sd, -1, NULL)) {

+		return g_strdup (sd);

+	} else {

+		/* Old versions of xklavier didn't encode the description in UTF-8 */

+		return g_locale_to_utf8 (sd, -1, NULL, NULL, NULL);

+	}

 }

 static void

diff --git a/capplets/keyboard/gnome-keyboard-properties-xkblt.c b/capplets/keyboard/gnome-keyboard-properties-xkblt.c

index 7670968..845a64d 100644

--- a/capplets/keyboard/gnome-keyboard-properties-xkblt.c

+++ b/capplets/keyboard/gnome-keyboard-properties-xkblt.c

@@ -369,10 +369,14 @@ xkb_layout_description_utf8 (const gchar * visible)

 	if (gkbd_keyboard_config_get_descriptions

 	    (config_registry, visible, &sl, &l, &sv, &v))

 		visible = gkbd_keyboard_config_format_full_layout (l, v);

-	v1 = g_strdup (visible);

-	utf_visible =

-	    g_locale_to_utf8 (g_strstrip (v1), -1, NULL, NULL, NULL);

-	g_free (v1);

+	v1 = g_strstrip (g_strdup (visible));

+	if (g_utf8_validate (v1, -1, NULL)) {

+		utf_visible = v1;

+	} else {

+		/* Old versions of xklavier didn't encode the description in UTF-8 */

+		utf_visible = g_locale_to_utf8 (v1, -1, NULL, NULL, NULL);

+		g_free (v1);

+	}

 	return utf_visible;

 }