Linux-Based Instant Messaging for non-English Users?

An anonymous reader asks: "Like many others these past few weeks, I took the time to download the latest RedHat (replace with your favorite distro here) and upgrade my system. Despite the usual mail hangovers (corporate mail is still Outlook through POP3, etc.), the new *Office suites are great and I can almost dump Windows. However I was amazed at the sorry state of Linux instant messaging. Before you flame me, mod me down or doom me to a lifetime of Windows usage, allow me to explain: I am not a native English speaker, and it seems that every single Windows IM client I use (except Trillian) can deal properly with accented characters. Worse, every third-party Linux client I have tried deals with them differently, resulting in garbled (vaguely Unicode-ish) junk! Does the Slashdot crowd (especially the non-English folk) have a solution for this? (Short of VMware and Win32 clients, that is. Wine doesn't work at all for me)"

"Portuguese (Continental) is my native language, and I speak French, Spanish, some German and (after spending quite a few months in Poland on a project) passable Polish. I speak those languages practically every other day, and besides e-mail, I have taken to using MSN and Yahoo to discuss work with my clients and colleagues.

I have thus far tried GAIM (both the RedHat 8.0 bundled and the CVS versions), Kopete, Everybuddy, the native Yahoo! (which crashes more often than not and does not even deserve the 'beta' moniker), and none of them are suitable. IRC does the job, sure, but most of the people I have to reach can't use it (firewalls, usually) and won't install another IM client, so the solution has got to be at my end."