"कुत्ते माँसाहारी होते हैं।"

Translation: Dogs are non-vegetarian.

[StormMaashrooms]

Doesn't माँसाहारी mean carnivorous?

[RanzoG]

Yes. In Hindustan (wink), vegetarianism is sometimes privileged with the default position rather than being the exception. So rather than talking about "food" and then having a special category "vegetarian food," there's a greater likelihood that food is already vegetarian and therefore the exceptional category that should be marked is "non-veg." This isn't to say that all or even necessarily most people in an area are vegetarians, but rather speaks with a sort of greater respect and acknowledgement of vegetarians. Sometimes, un-chaste (for lack of a better word!) things in general are referred to playfully as "non-veg." Drinking alcohol could be non-veg, or a movie for adult audiences could be non-veg.

[Sam362597]

I went with carnivorous, not really expecting it to be accepted, but I think I'll chance my arm and report it as acceptable. Non-veg is a widely used and understood term in India, but not in most other English-speaking countries.

[RADHIKA108]

I disagree. Non-veg is used in the UK. I use it a lot.

[AndriLindbergs]

I went with 'meat-eaters', no luck. RanzoG breaks this issue down very well. This is Indian culture and it has refreshingly the opposite convention from Western culture.

However, shouldn't 'carnivorous' etc. be an acceptable alternative?

[AnUnicorn]

I feel like saying "non-vegetarian" in English sounds like dogs are not part of a vegetarian diet. Which is true, but a very odd thing to say.

"Dogs are not vegetarian(s)" feels more natural to me.

[Ken384225]

Why is, “Dogs are non vegetarians,” not accepted. In English we’d use the singular and plural interchangeably in a sentence like this. In fact we’re speaking of the plural - dogs.

[rroca]

Why is "not vegetarian" not accepted? "not vegetarian" and "non-vegetarian" has pretty much the same meaning...

[Vassily12]

Why "The dogs.." is not accepted? Use of "the" article in this course is pretty arbitrary in many places

[Sam362597]

होते हैं marks this out as a general truth - it's basically saying 'All dogs are carnivorous ', hence no article.

[WannabeSmile]

Why does the adjective here end in ी rather than े ?

[RanzoG]

Some adjectives end in /ī/ for the Masculine Singular. They function like masculine adjectives ending in a consonant, for example, /lāl/ ("red"). One can distinguish between "red" and "black" adjectives: /lāl/ and /kālā/. The latter inflect their endings whereas the former do not. माँसाहारी is like a "red" adjective/noun.

For example, the advective to describe something from Punjab is /panjābī/.
vah laṛkā panjābī hai

That boy is Punjabi

ve laṛke panjābī hai~

Those boys are Punjabi