emerge kde failing

Hi everybody, 

I'm on my second run through a complete install, and I've just run into
the same problem that stopped me the first time.  I've got the base
system installed.  I wanted to set up KDE, so I followed the "Desktop 
Configuration Guide" and did "emerge kde".  It failed with this: 

gcc -mcpu=pentium3 -march=pentium3 -O3 -mfpmath=sse -mmmx -msse -mno-3dnow 
 -pipe -Wall -Wno-unused -Wno-comment -o .libs/xmanimate xmanimate.o  
../../lib/Xmd/libXmd.a ../../../lib/Mrm/.libs/libMrm.so 
/var/tmp/portage/openmotif-2.2.2-r1/work/openMotif-2.2.2/lib/Xm/.libs/libXm. 
so -L/usr/X11R6/lib ../../../lib/Xm/.libs/libXm.so -lXmu -lXt -lSM -lICE 
 -lXext -lXp -lX11 -Wl,--rpath -Wl,/usr/X11R6/lib
creating xmanimate
../../../clients/uil/uil -o dog.uid dog.uil -I./../../../clients/uil 
 -I../../../clients/uil 

Error: $LANG contains an unknown character set 

Info: no UID file was produced 

Info: errors: 1  warnings: 0  informationals: 1
make[3]: *** [dog.uid] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory 
`/var/tmp/portage/openmotif-2.2.2-r1/work/openMotif-2.2.2/demos/programs/ani 
mate'
make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory 
`/var/tmp/portage/openmotif-2.2.2-r1/work/openMotif-2.2.2/demos/programs'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory 
`/var/tmp/portage/openmotif-2.2.2-r1/work/openMotif-2.2.2/demos'
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 

!!! ERROR: The ebuild did not complete successfully.
!!! Function src_compile, Line 9, Exitcode 2
!!! make failed 

If I "echo $LANG", it says:
en_US.UTF-8 

Does anyone have any ideas? 

Thanks, 

Udo Hoerhold