diff --git a/contrib/pzstd/Makefile b/contrib/pzstd/Makefile
index 830053cd7..e62f8e873 100644
--- a/contrib/pzstd/Makefile
+++ b/contrib/pzstd/Makefile
@@ -37,10 +37,16 @@ CFLAGS   += -Wno-deprecated-declarations
 PZSTD_INC  = -I$(ZSTDDIR) -I$(ZSTDDIR)/common -I$(PROGDIR) -I.
 GTEST_INC  = -isystem googletest/googletest/include
 
+# If default C++ version is older than C++11, explicitly set C++11, which is the
+# minimum required by the code.
+ifeq ($(shell echo "\043if __cplusplus < 201103L\n\043error\n\043endif" | $(CXX) -x c++ -Werror -c - -o /dev/null 2>/dev/null && echo 1 || echo 0),0)
+PZSTD_CXX_STD := -std=c++11
+endif
+
 PZSTD_CPPFLAGS  = $(PZSTD_INC)
 PZSTD_CCXXFLAGS =
 PZSTD_CFLAGS    = $(PZSTD_CCXXFLAGS)
-PZSTD_CXXFLAGS  = $(PZSTD_CCXXFLAGS) -std=c++11
+PZSTD_CXXFLAGS  = $(PZSTD_CCXXFLAGS) $(PZSTD_CXX_STD)
 PZSTD_LDFLAGS   =
 EXTRA_FLAGS     =
 ALL_CFLAGS      = $(EXTRA_FLAGS) $(CPPFLAGS) $(PZSTD_CPPFLAGS) $(CFLAGS)   $(PZSTD_CFLAGS)