diff --git a/pkgs/data/fonts/cantarell-fonts/default.nix b/pkgs/data/fonts/cantarell-fonts/default.nix
index 08fb87c9f7ebf..03d2e85d6af9a 100644
--- a/pkgs/data/fonts/cantarell-fonts/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/data/fonts/cantarell-fonts/default.nix
@@ -13,6 +13,12 @@ in stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
 
   nativeBuildInputs = [ meson ninja gettext appstream-glib ];
 
+  # ad-hoc fix for https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/50855
+  # until we fix gettext's envHook
+  preBuild = ''
+    export GETTEXTDATADIRS="$GETTEXTDATADIRS_FOR_BUILD"
+  '';
+
   outputHashAlgo = "sha256";
   outputHashMode = "recursive";
   outputHash = "052nxmhw2j8yvcj90r8xhjf0mzim8h6syip7winxb28vavj6jnba";