diff --git a/Makefile.system b/Makefile.system
index a95d6190f..49c02bbcb 100644
--- a/Makefile.system
+++ b/Makefile.system
@@ -744,6 +744,8 @@ CCOMMON_OPT += -DF_INTERFACE_GFORT
 FCOMMON_OPT += -Wall
 # make single-threaded LAPACK calls thread-safe #1847
 FCOMMON_OPT += -frecursive
+# work around ABI problem with passing single-character arguments
+FCOMMON_OPT += -fno-optimize-sibling-calls
 #Don't include -lgfortran, when NO_LAPACK=1 or lsbcc
 ifneq ($(NO_LAPACK), 1)
 EXTRALIB += -lgfortran