diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 0b09899d..4b479fd5 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -8,6 +8,11 @@
    src/plugindata.h:
    Add new signal: "geany-startup-complete" which is sent once all
    initialization and startup tasks has been done.
+ * README.I18N, configure.ac, wscript, po/LINGUAS:
+   Remove po/LINGUAS from the repository.
+   Generate it automatically if needed by reading available
+   message catalogs from the po directory.
+   Also respect the LINGUAS environment variable properly.
 
 
 2010-01-16  Frank Lanitz  <frank(at)frank(dot)uvena(dot)de>
diff --git a/README.I18N b/README.I18N
index bf273dc5..54f81c04 100644
--- a/README.I18N
+++ b/README.I18N
@@ -20,8 +20,8 @@ text editor (like Geany ;-)) or you can also use a graphical
 interface. I can suggest PoEdit (http://www.poedit.net/), but
 there are several other GUIs.
 
-Make sure you add your language to the file po/LINGUAS.
-Just open the file with a text editor and add your code.
+You don't need to modify the file po/LINGUAS, it is regenerated
+automatically on the next build.
 
 When you have finished editing the file, check the file with:
 
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index a41347fc..14b6601b 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -240,7 +240,16 @@ GETTEXT_PACKAGE=geany
 AC_SUBST(GETTEXT_PACKAGE)
 AC_DEFINE_UNQUOTED(GETTEXT_PACKAGE,"$GETTEXT_PACKAGE", [Gettext package.])
 
-ALL_LINGUAS="`sed -e '/^#/d' $srcdir/po/LINGUAS`" # take all languages found in file po/LINGUAS
+if test -n "${LINGUAS}"
+then
+	ALL_LINGUAS="${LINGUAS}"
+	echo "special"
+else
+	if test -z "$conf_dir" ; then
+		conf_dir="."
+	fi
+	ALL_LINGUAS=`cd "$conf_dir/po" 2>/dev/null && ls *.po 2>/dev/null | $AWK 'BEGIN { FS="."; ORS=" " } { print $1 }'`
+fi
 
 AM_GLIB_GNU_GETTEXT
 # workaround for intltool bug (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=490845)
diff --git a/po/LINGUAS b/po/LINGUAS
deleted file mode 100644
index 692b1411..00000000
--- a/po/LINGUAS
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,2 +0,0 @@
-# set of available languages (in alphabetic order)
-be bg ca cs de el en_GB es fi fr gl hu it ja ko lb nl pl pt pt_BR ro ru sl sv tr uk vi zh_CN zh_TW
diff --git a/wscript b/wscript
index 610833f3..3d0e125b 100644
--- a/wscript
+++ b/wscript
@@ -51,6 +51,7 @@ import os
 import shutil
 import tempfile
 from distutils import version
+from TaskGen import taskgen, feature
 
 
 APPNAME = 'geany'
@@ -195,6 +196,8 @@ def configure(conf):
 	# we don't require intltool on Windows (it would require Perl) though it works well
 	try:
 		conf.check_tool('intltool')
+		if 'LINGUAS' in os.environ:
+			conf.env['LINGUAS'] = os.environ['LINGUAS']
 	except:
 		pass
 
@@ -513,6 +516,23 @@ def build(bld):
 		bld.install_files('${DATADIR}/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps', 'icons/scalable/*.svg')
 
 
+@taskgen
+@feature('intltool_po')
+def write_linguas_file(self):
+	linguas = ''
+	if 'LINGUAS' in Build.bld.env:
+		linguas = Build.bld.env['LINGUAS']
+	else:
+		files = os.listdir('%s/po' % self.path.abspath())
+		files.sort()
+		for f in files:
+			if f.endswith('.po'):
+				linguas += '%s ' % f[:-3]
+	f = open("po/LINGUAS", "w")
+	f.write('# This file is autogenerated. Do not edit.\n%s\n' % linguas)
+	f.close()
+
+
 def shutdown():
 	is_win32 = False if not Build.bld else target_is_win32(Build.bld.env)
 	# the following code was taken from midori's WAF script, thanks