diff --git a/tools/configure b/tools/configure
index 9069c84e3b..aab3e59dfb 100755
--- a/tools/configure
+++ b/tools/configure
@@ -1283,6 +1283,10 @@ voiceconfig () {
         advopts="$advopts --voice=$CHOICE"
         echo "Mimic voice set to $TTS_MIMIC_VOICE"
 	TTS_OPTS="$TTS_OPTS -voice $TTS_MIMIC_VOICE"
+    elif [ "$TTS_ENGINE" = "espeak" ] ; then
+	if [ -n "`findtool espeak-ng`" ] ; then
+	    TTS_ENGINE="espeak-ng"
+	fi
     fi
 
     # Read custom tts options from command line
diff --git a/tools/voice.pl b/tools/voice.pl
index bc076d5386..05ced3a6d9 100755
--- a/tools/voice.pl
+++ b/tools/voice.pl
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ use Digest::MD5 qw(md5_hex);
 use DirHandle;
 use open ':encoding(utf8)';
 use open ':std';
+use utf8;
 
 sub printusage {
     print <<USAGE
@@ -383,7 +384,7 @@ sub generateclips {
                 # If we have a pool of snippets, see if the string exists there first
                 if (defined($ENV{'POOL'})) {
                     $pool_file = sprintf("%s/%s-%s.mp3", $ENV{'POOL'},
-                                         md5_hex("$voice $tts_engine $tts_engine_opts $encoder_opts"),
+                                         md5_hex(Encode::encode_utf8("$voice $tts_engine $tts_engine_opts $encoder_opts")),
                                          $language);
                     if (-f $pool_file) {
                         printf("Re-using %s (%s) from pool\n", $id, $voice) if $verbose;