vim: Force specific syntax via command-line argument

You can use:

vim -c 'set syntax=sql' -

vim -R -c 'set ft=sql' -

• -R opens Vim in read-only mode. Your system may have the alias view for vim -R, but Neovim does not support it.
• set ft is short for set filetype. As Martin Tournoij mentioned in his comment, setting the file type sets the syntax and more.