diff --git a/make.sh b/make.sh
index 86e36d41d..ed8cd260e 100755
--- a/make.sh
+++ b/make.sh
@@ -912,7 +912,7 @@ qemu_find_build_helper_name() {
 file_is_static() {
 	local file="${1}"
 
-	file ${file} 2>/dev/null | grep -q "statically linked"
+	file -L "${file}" 2>/dev/null | grep -q "statically linked"
 }
 
 update_language_list() {