diff --git a/src/util.js b/src/util.js
index 6d45dedfbd..67bccbb1f0 100644
--- a/src/util.js
+++ b/src/util.js
@@ -21,7 +21,29 @@ node.inherits = function (ctor, superCtor) {
 
 // This is useful for dealing with raw encodings.
 node.encodeUtf8 = function (array) {
-  return String.fromCharCode.apply(String, array);
+  var string = "";
+  var i = 0;
+  var c = c1 = c2 = 0;
+
+  while (i < array.length) {
+    c = array[i];
+
+    if (c < 128) {
+      string += String.fromCharCode(c);
+      i++;
+    } else if ((c > 191) && (c < 224)) {
+      c2 = array[i+1];
+      string += String.fromCharCode(((c & 31) << 6) | (c2 & 63));
+      i += 2;
+    } else {
+      c2 = array[i+1];
+      c3 = array[i+2];
+      string += String.fromCharCode(((c & 15) << 12) | ((c2 & 63) << 6) | (c3 & 63));
+      i += 3;
+    }
+  }
+
+  return string;
 };
 
 node.cat = function(location, encoding) {
diff --git a/test/mjsunit/test-encode-utf8.js b/test/mjsunit/test-encode-utf8.js
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..461b8956fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/mjsunit/test-encode-utf8.js
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+include("mjsunit.js");
+
+function onLoad () {
+  var a = [116,101,115,116,32,206,163,207,131,207,128,206,177,32,226,161,140,226,160, 129,226,160,167,226,160,145];
+  var s = node.encodeUtf8(a);
+  assertEquals("test Σσπα ⡌⠁⠧⠑", s);
+
+  a = [104, 101, 108, 108, 111];
+  s = node.encodeUtf8(a);
+  assertEquals("hello", s);
+}