diff --git a/winsup/doc/ChangeLog b/winsup/doc/ChangeLog
index 95d248ae6..817d074b8 100644
--- a/winsup/doc/ChangeLog
+++ b/winsup/doc/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,9 @@
+2010-02-07  Corinna Vinschen  <corinna@vinschen.de>
+
+	* new-features.sgml (ov-new1.7.2): Add support for locales from
+	/usr/share/locale/locale.alias.
+	* setup2.sgml (setup-locale-ov): Ditto.
+
 2010-02-06  Corinna Vinschen  <corinna@vinschen.de>
 
 	* setup2.sgml (setup-locale-ov): Align description of working modifiers
diff --git a/winsup/doc/new-features.sgml b/winsup/doc/new-features.sgml
index 40a283b9e..8de7da795 100644
--- a/winsup/doc/new-features.sgml
+++ b/winsup/doc/new-features.sgml
@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@
   <listitem><para>
   Cygwin now handles locales using the underlying Windows locale
   support.  The locale must exist in Windows to be recognized.
+  Locale aliases from the file /usr/share/locale/locale.alias are also
+  allowed, as long as their replacement is supported by the underlying Windows.
   </para></listitem>
 
   <listitem><para>
diff --git a/winsup/doc/setup2.sgml b/winsup/doc/setup2.sgml
index 0f236f6be..07a69c117 100644
--- a/winsup/doc/setup2.sgml
+++ b/winsup/doc/setup2.sgml
@@ -203,6 +203,25 @@ manual pages on the homepage of the
   "syr_SY"         language = Syriac, territory = Syria, default charset
 </screen>
 
+<para>
+If the locale specifier does not follow the above form, Cygwin checks
+if the locale is one of the locale aliases defined in the file
+<filename>/usr/share/locale/locale.alias</filename>.  If so, and if
+the replacement localename is supported by the underlying Windows,
+the locale is accepted, too.  So, given the default content of the
+<filename>/usr/share/locale/locale.alias</filename> file, the below
+examples would be valid locale specifiers as well.
+</para>
+
+<screen>
+  "catalan"        defined as "ca_ES.ISO-8859-1" in locale.alias
+  "japanese"       defined as "ja_JP.eucJP"      in locale.alias
+  "turkish"        defined as "tr_TR.ISO-8859-9" in locale.alias
+</screen>
+
+<para>The file <filename>/usr/share/locale/locale.alias</filename> is
+provided by the gettext package under Cygwin.</para>
+
 <para>
 At application startup, the application's locale is set to the default
 "C" or "POSIX" locale.  Under Cygwin 1.7.2 and later, this locale defaults