If you then add use Encode; and change the last line to print encode('UTF-8',Dumper($a)); (like you should when using an UTF_8 terminal), then you'll get $VAR1 = 'tón';

Assuming the real code is going to use more than one print statement, this suggestion will require calling encode() for every print, which is not DRY programming. Alternative: use the binmode function, as binmode STDOUT, ':encoding(UTF-8)'; , sometime before any print statements, and just use normal print statements (like print Dumper($a);) throughout. This lets the I/O layer handle the translation from Perl's internal representation to UTF-8-encoded output.