diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index cc8ef21c05..d951b07b87 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 2.2.9
+ * cqlsh: fix DESC TYPES errors (CASSANDRA-12914)
  * Fix leak on skipped SSTables in sstableupgrade (CASSANDRA-12899)
  * Avoid blocking gossip during pending range calculation (CASSANDRA-12281)
  * Fix purgeability of tombstones with max timestamp (CASSANDRA-12792)
diff --git a/bin/cqlsh.py b/bin/cqlsh.py
index 514fadab16..a9c5ff11f5 100644
--- a/bin/cqlsh.py
+++ b/bin/cqlsh.py
@@ -1497,12 +1497,10 @@ class Shell(cmd.Cmd):
                 name = protect_name(ksmeta.name)
                 print 'Keyspace %s' % (name,)
                 print '---------%s' % ('-' * len(name))
-                cmd.Cmd.columnize(self, protect_names(ksmeta.functions.keys()))
-                print
+                self._columnize_unicode(ksmeta.functions.keys())
         else:
             ksmeta = self.get_keyspace_meta(ksname)
-            cmd.Cmd.columnize(self, protect_names(ksmeta.functions.keys()))
-            print
+            self._columnize_unicode(ksmeta.functions.keys())
 
     def describe_function(self, ksname, functionname):
         if ksname is None:
@@ -1524,12 +1522,10 @@ class Shell(cmd.Cmd):
                 name = protect_name(ksmeta.name)
                 print 'Keyspace %s' % (name,)
                 print '---------%s' % ('-' * len(name))
-                cmd.Cmd.columnize(self, protect_names(ksmeta.aggregates.keys()))
-                print
+                self._columnize_unicode(ksmeta.aggregates.keys())
         else:
             ksmeta = self.get_keyspace_meta(ksname)
-            cmd.Cmd.columnize(self, protect_names(ksmeta.aggregates.keys()))
-            print
+            self._columnize_unicode(ksmeta.aggregates.keys())
 
     def describe_aggregate(self, ksname, aggregatename):
         if ksname is None:
@@ -1551,12 +1547,10 @@ class Shell(cmd.Cmd):
                 name = protect_name(ksmeta.name)
                 print 'Keyspace %s' % (name,)
                 print '---------%s' % ('-' * len(name))
-                cmd.Cmd.columnize(self, protect_names(ksmeta.user_types.keys()))
-                print
+                self._columnize_unicode(ksmeta.user_types.keys(), quote=True)
         else:
             ksmeta = self.get_keyspace_meta(ksname)
-            cmd.Cmd.columnize(self, protect_names(ksmeta.user_types.keys()))
-            print
+            self._columnize_unicode(ksmeta.user_types.keys(), quote=True)
 
     def describe_usertype(self, ksname, typename):
         if ksname is None:
@@ -1572,6 +1566,16 @@ class Shell(cmd.Cmd):
         print usertype.as_cql_query(formatted=True)
         print
 
+    def _columnize_unicode(self, name_list, quote=False):
+        """
+        Used when columnizing identifiers that may contain unicode
+        """
+        names = [n.encode('utf-8') for n in name_list]
+        if quote:
+            names = protect_names(names)
+        cmd.Cmd.columnize(self, names)
+        print
+
     def describe_cluster(self):
         print '\nCluster: %s' % self.get_cluster_name()
         p = trim_if_present(self.get_partitioner(), 'org.apache.cassandra.dht.')