diff --git a/lily/guile-init.cc b/lily/guile-init.cc
index 4270aa01d6..c1bbf7e650 100644
--- a/lily/guile-init.cc
+++ b/lily/guile-init.cc
@@ -56,6 +56,14 @@ ly_init_ly_module ()
   for (vsize i = scm_init_funcs_->size (); i--;)
     (scm_init_funcs_->at (i)) ();
 
+#if GUILEV2
+  // We need binary ports for any of our standard input operations,
+  // and the precompiled API calls for those crash inexplicably if we
+  // have not explicitly loaded the module anyway.
+  // Cf <URL:http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=20209>.
+  (void) scm_c_resolve_module ("ice-9 binary-ports");
+#endif
+
   if (is_loglevel (LOG_DEBUG))
     {
       debug_output ("[", true);
diff --git a/lily/include/lily-imports.hh b/lily/include/lily-imports.hh
index cc61ea7d9a..1276d2dea7 100644
--- a/lily/include/lily-imports.hh
+++ b/lily/include/lily-imports.hh
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@ namespace Guile_user {
   extern Variable module_use_x;
   extern Variable symbol_p;
   extern Variable the_root_module;
+  extern Variable default_port_encoding;
 }
 
 namespace Display {
diff --git a/lily/lily-guile.cc b/lily/lily-guile.cc
index f37380f024..9b7e62320c 100644
--- a/lily/lily-guile.cc
+++ b/lily/lily-guile.cc
@@ -126,12 +126,13 @@ ly_scm2string (SCM str)
 {
   assert (scm_is_string (str));
   string result;
-  size_t len = scm_c_string_length (str);
+  size_t len;
+  char *c_string = scm_to_locale_stringn (str, &len);
   if (len)
     {
-      result.resize (len);
-      scm_to_locale_stringbuf (str, &result.at (0), len);
+      result.assign (c_string, len);
     }
+  free (c_string);
   return result;
 }
 
diff --git a/lily/lily-imports.cc b/lily/lily-imports.cc
index 5bb4863168..e0aaa36788 100644
--- a/lily/lily-imports.cc
+++ b/lily/lily-imports.cc
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ namespace Guile_user {
   Variable module_use_x ("module-use!");
   Variable symbol_p ("symbol?");
   Variable the_root_module ("the-root-module");
+  Variable default_port_encoding ("%default-port-encoding");
 }
 
 namespace Display {
diff --git a/lily/paper-outputter-scheme.cc b/lily/paper-outputter-scheme.cc
index 145e9bfa93..ad3b74f344 100644
--- a/lily/paper-outputter-scheme.cc
+++ b/lily/paper-outputter-scheme.cc
@@ -44,6 +44,9 @@ LY_DEFINE (ly_make_paper_outputter, "ly:make-paper-outputter",
   progress_indication ("\n");
   Paper_outputter *po = new Paper_outputter (port, f);
 
+  if (f == "ps")
+    scm_set_port_encoding_x(port, ly_string2scm("ISO-8859-1"));
+
   po->unprotect ();
   return po->self_scm ();
 }
diff --git a/lily/parse-scm.cc b/lily/parse-scm.cc
index 576591dc97..20627ed96b 100644
--- a/lily/parse-scm.cc
+++ b/lily/parse-scm.cc
@@ -54,7 +54,14 @@ internal_ly_parse_scm (Parse_start *ps)
   if (multiple)
     (void) scm_read_char (port);
 
+#if GUILEV2
+  SCM current_encoding = scm_port_encoding (port);
+  scm_set_port_encoding_x (port, ly_string2scm("UTF-8"));
   SCM form = scm_read (port);
+  scm_set_port_encoding_x (port, current_encoding);
+#else
+  SCM form = scm_read (port);
+#endif
   SCM to = scm_ftell (port);
 
   hi.set (hi.get_source_file (),
diff --git a/lily/source-file.cc b/lily/source-file.cc
index 14fdf2beb3..7a8d290524 100644
--- a/lily/source-file.cc
+++ b/lily/source-file.cc
@@ -41,6 +41,7 @@ using namespace std;
 #include "international.hh"
 #include "misc.hh"
 #include "warn.hh"
+#include "lily-imports.hh"
 
 void
 Source_file::load_stdin ()
@@ -151,8 +152,22 @@ Source_file::init_port ()
   // This is somewhat icky: the string will in general be in utf8, but
   // we do our own utf8 encoding and verification in the parser, so we
   // use the no-conversion equivalent of latin1
+#if GUILEV2
+  SCM str = scm_c_make_bytevector (length () - 1);
+  memcpy (SCM_BYTEVECTOR_CONTENTS (str), c_str (), length () - 1);
+  // Setting %default-port-encoding to binary before calling
+  // open-bytevector-input-port appears quite unnecessary regarding
+  // the documented semantics, but at least GUILE 2.0.11 is not
+  // particularly interested in sticking to its documentation.
+  // <URL:http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=20200>
+  scm_dynwind_begin ((scm_t_dynwind_flags)0);
+  scm_dynwind_fluid (Guile_user::default_port_encoding, SCM_BOOL_F);
+  str_port_ = scm_open_bytevector_input_port (str, SCM_UNDEFINED);
+  scm_dynwind_end ();
+#else
   SCM str = scm_from_latin1_string (c_str ());
   str_port_ = scm_mkstrport (SCM_INUM0, str, SCM_OPN | SCM_RDNG, __FUNCTION__);
+#endif
   scm_set_port_filename_x (str_port_, ly_string2scm (name_));
 }
 
diff --git a/ly/init.ly b/ly/init.ly
index 394b122f31..8fdc6e2b17 100644
--- a/ly/init.ly
+++ b/ly/init.ly
@@ -7,7 +7,10 @@
 \version "2.19.22"
 
 #(if (guile-v2)
-  (use-modules (ice-9 curried-definitions)))
+  (begin
+   (use-modules (ice-9 curried-definitions))
+   (setlocale LC_ALL "")
+   (setlocale LC_NUMERIC "C")))
 
 #(session-initialize
   (lambda ()