if it works on FC3 (even newer version of gettext) - there should be no reason to not work with older versions of gettext.
Well, the get enlightenment/E17 Build Notes page (On enlightenment.org) says that gettext v0.11.5 is required. I had the same problem you did with 0.11.5. When i was playing around with E17 i had installed gettext
0.11.5 over FreeBSD's 0.14.5, and then that error had appeared. Reinstalling gettext to 0.14.5 fixed it (This is what i meant, sorry for not being erm, well badly presented).
Anyway,
Sorry to say, but what's the point of up2date if the package is outdated? J/K ;-)