diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 1496bd74fc..a006615f76 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -548,7 +548,7 @@ target-generatelocales: host-localedef
 		I18NPATH=$(STAGING_DIR)/usr/share/i18n:/usr/share/i18n \
 		$(HOST_DIR)/usr/bin/localedef \
 			--prefix=$(TARGET_DIR) \
-			--`echo $(BR2_ENDIAN) | tr [A-Z] [a-z]`-endian \
+			--$(call LOWERCASE,$(BR2_ENDIAN))-endian \
 			-i $${inputfile} -f $${charmap} \
 			$${locale} ; \
 	done
diff --git a/package/pkg-utils.mk b/package/pkg-utils.mk
index 5930f2cfc2..0ef433dc93 100644
--- a/package/pkg-utils.mk
+++ b/package/pkg-utils.mk
@@ -23,6 +23,14 @@ UPPERCASE = $(strip $(eval __tmp := $1) \
 	$(__tmp)))) \
 	$(__tmp))
 
+# LOWERCASE macro -- transforms its arguments to lowercase
+# The above non-tr implementation is not needed, because LOWERCASE is not
+# called very often
+
+define LOWERCASE
+$(shell echo $1 | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')
+endef
+
 #
 # Manipulation of .config files based on the Kconfig
 # infrastructure. Used by the Busybox package, the Linux kernel