diff -r 558b26b6a342 Lib/textwrap.py
--- a/Lib/textwrap.py	Sun Feb 02 12:50:48 2014 -0500
+++ b/Lib/textwrap.py	Sun Feb 02 22:31:51 2014 +0200
@@ -79,16 +79,17 @@
     # splits into
     #   Hello/ /there/ /--/ /you/ /goof-/ball,/ /use/ /the/ /-b/ /option!
     # (after stripping out empty strings).
-    wordsep_re = re.compile(
-        r'(\s+|'                                  # any whitespace
-        r'[^\s\w]*\w+[^0-9\W]-(?=\w+[^0-9\W])|'   # hyphenated words
-        r'(?<=[\w\!\"\'\&\.\,\?])-{2,}(?=\w))')   # em-dash
+    wordsep_re = re.compile((
+        r'([{0}]+|'                                # any whitespace
+        r'[^{0}\w]*\w+[^0-9\W]-(?=\w+[^0-9\W])|'   # hyphenated words
+        r'(?<=[\w\!\"\'\&\.\,\?])-{{2,}}(?=\w))'   # em-dash
+    ).format(_whitespace))
 
     # This less funky little regex just split on recognized spaces. E.g.
     #   "Hello there -- you goof-ball, use the -b option!"
     # splits into
     #   Hello/ /there/ /--/ /you/ /goof-ball,/ /use/ /the/ /-b/ /option!/
-    wordsep_simple_re = re.compile(r'(\s+)')
+    wordsep_simple_re = re.compile(r'([{}]+)'.format(_whitespace))
 
     # XXX this is not locale- or charset-aware -- string.lowercase
     # is US-ASCII only (and therefore English-only)