diff --git a/public/utflib.c b/public/utflib.c
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..c3b69ca1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/public/utflib.c
@@ -0,0 +1,207 @@
+/*
+utflib.c - small unicode conversion library
+Copyright (C) 2024 Alibek Omarov
+
+This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
+(at your option) any later version.
+
+This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+GNU General Public License for more details.
+*/
+#include "utflib.h"
+#include "xash3d_types.h"
+
+uint32_t Q_DecodeUTF8( utfstate_t *s, uint32_t in )
+{
+	// get character length
+	if( s->len == 0 )
+	{
+		// init state
+		s->uc = 0;
+
+		// expect ASCII symbols by default
+		if( likely( in <= 0x7fu ))
+			return in;
+
+		// invalid sequence
+		if( unlikely( in >= 0xf8u ))
+			return 0;
+
+		s->k = 0;
+
+		if( in >= 0xf0u )
+		{
+			s->uc = in & 0x07u;
+			s->len = 3;
+		}
+		else if( in >= 0xe0u )
+		{
+			s->uc = in & 0x0fu;
+			s->len = 2;
+		}
+		else if( in >= 0xc0u )
+		{
+			s->uc = in & 0x1fu;
+			s->len = 1;
+		}
+
+		return 0;
+	}
+
+	// invalid sequence, reset
+	if( unlikely( in > 0xbfu ))
+	{
+		s->len = 0;
+		return 0;
+	}
+
+	s->uc <<= 6;
+	s->uc += in & 0x3fu;
+	s->k++;
+
+	// sequence complete, reset and return code point
+	if( likely( s->k == s->len ))
+	{
+		s->len = 0;
+		return s->uc;
+	}
+
+	// feed more characters
+	return 0;
+}
+
+uint32_t Q_DecodeUTF16( utfstate_t *s, uint32_t in )
+{
+	// get character length
+	if( s->len == 0 )
+	{
+		// init state
+		s->uc = 0;
+
+		// expect simple case, after all decoding UTF-16 must be easy
+		if( likely( in < 0xd800u || in > 0xdfffu ))
+			return in;
+
+		s->uc = (( in - 0xd800u ) << 10 ) + 0x10000u;
+		s->len = 1;
+		s->k = 0;
+
+		return 0;
+	}
+
+	// invalid sequence, reset
+	if( unlikely( in < 0xdc00u || in > 0xdfffu ))
+	{
+		s->len = 0;
+		return 0;
+	}
+
+	s->uc |= in - 0xdc00u;
+	s->k++;
+
+	// sequence complete, reset and return code point
+	if( likely( s->k == s->len ))
+	{
+		s->len = 0;
+		return s->uc;
+	}
+
+	// feed more characters (should never happen with UTF-16)
+	return 0;
+}
+
+size_t Q_EncodeUTF8( char dst[4], uint32_t ch )
+{
+	if( ch <= 0x7fu )
+	{
+		dst[0] = ch;
+		return 1;
+	}
+	else if( ch <= 0x7ffu )
+	{
+		dst[0] = 0xc0u | (( ch >> 6 ) & 0x1fu );
+		dst[1] = 0x80u | (( ch ) & 0x3fu );
+		return 2;
+	}
+	else if( ch <= 0xffffu )
+	{
+		dst[0] = 0xe0u | (( ch >> 12 ) & 0x0fu );
+		dst[1] = 0x80u | (( ch >> 6 ) & 0x3fu );
+		dst[2] = 0x80u | (( ch ) & 0x3fu );
+		return 3;
+	}
+
+	dst[0] = 0xf0u | (( ch >> 18 ) & 0x07u );
+	dst[1] = 0x80u | (( ch >> 12 ) & 0x3fu );
+	dst[2] = 0x80u | (( ch >> 6 ) & 0x3fu );
+	dst[3] = 0x80u | (( ch ) & 0x3fu );
+	return 4;
+}
+
+size_t Q_UTF8Length( const char *s )
+{
+	size_t len = 0;
+	utfstate_t state = { 0 };
+
+	if( !s )
+		return 0;
+
+	for( ; *s; s++ )
+	{
+		uint32_t ch = Q_DecodeUTF8( &state, (uint32_t)*s );
+
+		if( ch == 0 )
+			continue;
+
+		len++;
+	}
+
+	return len;
+}
+
+static size_t Q_CodepointLength( uint32_t ch )
+{
+	if( ch <= 0x7fu )
+		return 1;
+	else if( ch <= 0x7ffu )
+		return 2;
+	else if( ch <= 0xffffu )
+		return 3;
+
+	return 4;
+}
+
+size_t Q_UTF16ToUTF8( char *dst, size_t dstsize, const uint16_t *src, size_t srcsize )
+{
+	utfstate_t state = { 0 };
+	size_t dsti = 0, srci;
+
+	if( !dst || !src || !dstsize || !srcsize )
+		return 0;
+
+	for( srci = 0; srci < srcsize && src[srci]; srci++ )
+	{
+		uint32_t ch;
+		size_t len;
+
+		ch = Q_DecodeUTF16( &state, src[srci] );
+
+		if( ch == 0 )
+			continue;
+
+		len = Q_CodepointLength( ch );
+
+		if( dsti + len + 1 > dstsize )
+			break;
+
+		dsti += Q_EncodeUTF8( &dst[dsti], ch );
+	}
+
+	dst[dsti] = 0;
+
+	return dsti;
+}
diff --git a/public/utflib.h b/public/utflib.h
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..eb32c16f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/public/utflib.h
@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+/*
+utflib.h - small unicode conversion library
+Copyright (C) 2024 Alibek Omarov
+
+This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
+(at your option) any later version.
+
+This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+GNU General Public License for more details.
+*/
+#ifndef UTFLIB_H
+#define UTFLIB_H
+
+#include STDINT_H
+#include <stddef.h>
+
+typedef struct utfstate_s
+{
+	uint32_t uc;
+	uint8_t len;
+	uint8_t k;
+} utfstate_t;
+
+// feed utf8 characters one by one
+// if it returns 0, feed more
+// utfstate_t must be zero initialized
+uint32_t Q_DecodeUTF8( utfstate_t *s, uint32_t ch );
+uint32_t Q_DecodeUTF16( utfstate_t *s, uint32_t ch );
+size_t Q_EncodeUTF8( char dst[4], uint32_t ch );
+
+size_t Q_UTF8Length( const char *s );
+
+// srcsize in byte pairs
+size_t Q_UTF16ToUTF8( char *dst, size_t dstsize, const uint16_t *src, size_t srcsize );
+
+#endif // UTFLIB_H