diff --git a/openstack-common.conf b/openstack-common.conf
index c75b00d49..729779c66 100644
--- a/openstack-common.conf
+++ b/openstack-common.conf
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 # The list of modules to copy from oslo-incubator.git
 module=excutils
 module=fixture.moxstubout
+module=gettextutils
 module=importutils
 module=jsonutils
 module=network_utils
diff --git a/oslo/messaging/openstack/common/gettextutils.py b/oslo/messaging/openstack/common/gettextutils.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..49755c0ce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/oslo/messaging/openstack/common/gettextutils.py
@@ -0,0 +1,259 @@
+# vim: tabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 softtabstop=4
+
+# Copyright 2012 Red Hat, Inc.
+# All Rights Reserved.
+# Copyright 2013 IBM Corp.
+#
+#    Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may
+#    not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain
+#    a copy of the License at
+#
+#         http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+#    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+#    distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
+#    WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
+#    License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
+#    under the License.
+
+"""
+gettext for openstack-common modules.
+
+Usual usage in an openstack.common module:
+
+    from oslo.messaging.openstack.common.gettextutils import _
+"""
+
+import copy
+import gettext
+import logging.handlers
+import os
+import re
+import UserString
+
+import six
+
+_localedir = os.environ.get('oslo.messaging'.upper() + '_LOCALEDIR')
+_t = gettext.translation('oslo.messaging', localedir=_localedir, fallback=True)
+
+
+def _(msg):
+    return _t.ugettext(msg)
+
+
+def install(domain):
+    """Install a _() function using the given translation domain.
+
+    Given a translation domain, install a _() function using gettext's
+    install() function.
+
+    The main difference from gettext.install() is that we allow
+    overriding the default localedir (e.g. /usr/share/locale) using
+    a translation-domain-specific environment variable (e.g.
+    NOVA_LOCALEDIR).
+    """
+    gettext.install(domain,
+                    localedir=os.environ.get(domain.upper() + '_LOCALEDIR'),
+                    unicode=True)
+
+
+"""
+Lazy gettext functionality.
+
+The following is an attempt to introduce a deferred way
+to do translations on messages in OpenStack. We attempt to
+override the standard _() function and % (format string) operation
+to build Message objects that can later be translated when we have
+more information. Also included is an example LogHandler that
+translates Messages to an associated locale, effectively allowing
+many logs, each with their own locale.
+"""
+
+
+def get_lazy_gettext(domain):
+    """Assemble and return a lazy gettext function for a given domain.
+
+    Factory method for a project/module to get a lazy gettext function
+    for its own translation domain (i.e. nova, glance, cinder, etc.)
+    """
+
+    def _lazy_gettext(msg):
+        """Create and return a Message object.
+
+        Message encapsulates a string so that we can translate it later when
+        needed.
+        """
+        return Message(msg, domain)
+
+    return _lazy_gettext
+
+
+class Message(UserString.UserString, object):
+    """Class used to encapsulate translatable messages."""
+    def __init__(self, msg, domain):
+        # _msg is the gettext msgid and should never change
+        self._msg = msg
+        self._left_extra_msg = ''
+        self._right_extra_msg = ''
+        self.params = None
+        self.locale = None
+        self.domain = domain
+
+    @property
+    def data(self):
+        # NOTE(mrodden): this should always resolve to a unicode string
+        # that best represents the state of the message currently
+
+        localedir = os.environ.get(self.domain.upper() + '_LOCALEDIR')
+        if self.locale:
+            lang = gettext.translation(self.domain,
+                                       localedir=localedir,
+                                       languages=[self.locale],
+                                       fallback=True)
+        else:
+            # use system locale for translations
+            lang = gettext.translation(self.domain,
+                                       localedir=localedir,
+                                       fallback=True)
+
+        full_msg = (self._left_extra_msg +
+                    lang.ugettext(self._msg) +
+                    self._right_extra_msg)
+
+        if self.params is not None:
+            full_msg = full_msg % self.params
+
+        return six.text_type(full_msg)
+
+    def _save_dictionary_parameter(self, dict_param):
+        full_msg = self.data
+        # look for %(blah) fields in string;
+        # ignore %% and deal with the
+        # case where % is first character on the line
+        keys = re.findall('(?:[^%]|^)%\((\w*)\)[a-z]', full_msg)
+
+        # if we don't find any %(blah) blocks but have a %s
+        if not keys and re.findall('(?:[^%]|^)%[a-z]', full_msg):
+            # apparently the full dictionary is the parameter
+            params = copy.deepcopy(dict_param)
+        else:
+            params = {}
+            for key in keys:
+                try:
+                    params[key] = copy.deepcopy(dict_param[key])
+                except TypeError:
+                    # cast uncopyable thing to unicode string
+                    params[key] = unicode(dict_param[key])
+
+        return params
+
+    def _save_parameters(self, other):
+        # we check for None later to see if
+        # we actually have parameters to inject,
+        # so encapsulate if our parameter is actually None
+        if other is None:
+            self.params = (other, )
+        elif isinstance(other, dict):
+            self.params = self._save_dictionary_parameter(other)
+        else:
+            # fallback to casting to unicode,
+            # this will handle the problematic python code-like
+            # objects that cannot be deep-copied
+            try:
+                self.params = copy.deepcopy(other)
+            except TypeError:
+                self.params = unicode(other)
+
+        return self
+
+    # overrides to be more string-like
+    def __unicode__(self):
+        return self.data
+
+    def __str__(self):
+        return self.data.encode('utf-8')
+
+    def __getstate__(self):
+        to_copy = ['_msg', '_right_extra_msg', '_left_extra_msg',
+                   'domain', 'params', 'locale']
+        new_dict = self.__dict__.fromkeys(to_copy)
+        for attr in to_copy:
+            new_dict[attr] = copy.deepcopy(self.__dict__[attr])
+
+        return new_dict
+
+    def __setstate__(self, state):
+        for (k, v) in state.items():
+            setattr(self, k, v)
+
+    # operator overloads
+    def __add__(self, other):
+        copied = copy.deepcopy(self)
+        copied._right_extra_msg += other.__str__()
+        return copied
+
+    def __radd__(self, other):
+        copied = copy.deepcopy(self)
+        copied._left_extra_msg += other.__str__()
+        return copied
+
+    def __mod__(self, other):
+        # do a format string to catch and raise
+        # any possible KeyErrors from missing parameters
+        self.data % other
+        copied = copy.deepcopy(self)
+        return copied._save_parameters(other)
+
+    def __mul__(self, other):
+        return self.data * other
+
+    def __rmul__(self, other):
+        return other * self.data
+
+    def __getitem__(self, key):
+        return self.data[key]
+
+    def __getslice__(self, start, end):
+        return self.data.__getslice__(start, end)
+
+    def __getattribute__(self, name):
+        # NOTE(mrodden): handle lossy operations that we can't deal with yet
+        # These override the UserString implementation, since UserString
+        # uses our __class__ attribute to try and build a new message
+        # after running the inner data string through the operation.
+        # At that point, we have lost the gettext message id and can just
+        # safely resolve to a string instead.
+        ops = ['capitalize', 'center', 'decode', 'encode',
+               'expandtabs', 'ljust', 'lstrip', 'replace', 'rjust', 'rstrip',
+               'strip', 'swapcase', 'title', 'translate', 'upper', 'zfill']
+        if name in ops:
+            return getattr(self.data, name)
+        else:
+            return UserString.UserString.__getattribute__(self, name)
+
+
+class LocaleHandler(logging.Handler):
+    """Handler that can have a locale associated to translate Messages.
+
+    A quick example of how to utilize the Message class above.
+    LocaleHandler takes a locale and a target logging.Handler object
+    to forward LogRecord objects to after translating the internal Message.
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self, locale, target):
+        """Initialize a LocaleHandler
+
+        :param locale: locale to use for translating messages
+        :param target: logging.Handler object to forward
+                       LogRecord objects to after translation
+        """
+        logging.Handler.__init__(self)
+        self.locale = locale
+        self.target = target
+
+    def emit(self, record):
+        if isinstance(record.msg, Message):
+            # set the locale and resolve to a string
+            record.msg.locale = self.locale
+
+        self.target.emit(record)