You can get the encoding for your database by the following steps.
Log into cPanel and click on the phpMyAdmin; icon.
Click on your database name and the go to "Structure" tab.
Here, you can see the "Collation" type under the column "Collation".
You can also change the Collation type by the following steps.
Go to "Operations" tab.
At the bottom of the page you will see the collation option.
You can now select a collation from the drop down menu and click on the Go button.