Comment 9 for bug 406662

@Elia - if you look at the console messages when launching Inkscape.app (0.47 or devel builds), you'll most likely see these lines:

> Setting Language: .UTF-8
> Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
> Using the fallback 'C' locale.

i.e. the launcher script fails to create a valid $LANG string. IMHO this is the reason why the system-installed Python subsequently fails on certain functions that depend on correct locale settings. See also my comments in Bug #476678 “Mac OS X: Fails to get locale in Japanese” about the possible cause and a (unfinished) proposal how to alternatively parse the language settings from the OS X system preferences of the current user.

The patch I added in comment #7 is not a good solution because it drops any result from parsing of the current user settings in the 'International' preferences pane.