diff -u hyphen/hyphen.c build/hyphen/hyphen.c
--- hyphen/hyphen.c	2014-05-22 00:28:13.164587974 +0200
+++ build/hyphen/hyphen.c	2014-05-22 11:08:55.000000000 +0200
@@ -44,6 +44,11 @@
 #include <unistd.h> /* for exit */
 #endif
 
+#ifdef _WIN32
+#include <windows.h>
+#include <wchar.h>
+#endif
+
 #define noVERBOSE
 
 /* calculate hyphenmin values with long ligature length (2 or 3 characters
@@ -371,6 +376,22 @@
 	    }
 }
 
+FILE * hnj_fopen(const char * path, const char * mode) {
+#ifdef _WIN32
+#define WIN32_LONG_PATH_PREFIX "\\\\?\\"
+    if (strncmp(path, WIN32_LONG_PATH_PREFIX, 4) == 0) {
+        int len = MultiByteToWideChar(CP_UTF8, 0, path, -1, NULL, 0);
+        wchar_t *buff = (wchar_t *) malloc(len * sizeof(wchar_t));
+        FILE * f;
+        MultiByteToWideChar(CP_UTF8, 0, path, -1, buff, len);
+        f = _wfopen(buff, (strcmp(mode, "r") == 0) ? L"r" : L"rb");
+        free(buff);
+        return f;
+    }
+#endif
+    return fopen(path, mode);
+}
+
 HyphenDict *
 hnj_hyphen_load (const char *fn)
 {
@@ -383,7 +404,7 @@
   HashEntry *e;
   int state_num = 0;
 
-  f = fopen (fn, "r");
+  f = hnj_fopen (fn, "r");
   if (f == NULL)
     return NULL;