The ability to have different encoding for syntax files and dictionaries is meant to be helpful, and it often is.  For example, it makes sense to be able to read a system file encoded in an arbitrary encoding from a syntax file encoded in some other encoding.

However, there is considerable room for confusion when using the --syntax-encoding command line option: if the syntax file in question creates a new dictionary, then the encoding for that dictionary doesn't follow from the syntax file's encoding, even though one would naively expect it to do so.  Instead, the new dictionary's encoding follows independently from SET LOCALE or the system locale.

I am not sure of a good solution, but it seems a problem worth considering.

Originally encountered: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/pspp-users/2014-04/msg00002.html
Problem explained: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/pspp-users/2014-04/msg00004.html