diff --git a/core/core.el b/core/core.el
index de8ed323c..f335b8af4 100644
--- a/core/core.el
+++ b/core/core.el
@@ -44,12 +44,9 @@ envvar will enable this at startup.")
 
 ;; Contrary to what many Emacs users have in their configs, you don't need more
 ;; than this to make UTF-8 the default coding system:
-(when (fboundp 'set-charset-priority)
-  (set-charset-priority 'unicode))       ; pretty
-(prefer-coding-system 'utf-8)            ; pretty
-(setq locale-coding-system 'utf-8)       ; please
-;; The clipboard's on Windows could be in a wider encoding than utf-8 (likely
-;; utf-16), so let Emacs/the OS decide what encoding to use there.
+(set-language-environment "UTF-8")
+;; ...but the clipboard's on Windows could be in another encoding (likely
+;; utf-16), so let Emacs/the OS decide what to use there.
 (unless IS-WINDOWS
   (setq selection-coding-system 'utf-8)) ; with sugar on top