Is it correct that the pronunciation is

• umzeruy

when the written word is

• umezruy

Yes, this is the correct spelling of the word here, this E, in Kabyle language it's called the silent E, it is sometimes used when three consonants meet, notably for ease of reading.

Thanks Samir.

Do you happen to know some literature about Kabyle pronunciation, preferably in German or English (definitely NOT French ;-) that could a beginner give a little glimpse into the language, perhaps with a little mix of grammar or peculiarities of the language itself. Just to get a faint idea of the intricacies as opposed to european/western languages.

I like the script very much, but I have never ever taken a guess of how it would sound, and wasn‘t completely wrong when I actually heard the audio sample.

It just shows me that there is a complete lack of general understanding on my side.

Maybe you have some links that could help a little...

BTW: Spanish would be perfect, too - even better than English...

To get an overview, in English, there is for example the Wikipedia article which gives it a fairly good introduction on several levels, including linguistics. Since I don't speak German, I can't tell you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabyle_language
Too bad, since in French there is a very rich literature and lessons of Kabyle on the web.

So why are the two spoken examples on Wikipedia sounding so different from what your samples sound?

Especially the girl seems to be a ‘non-native’ speaker, but even the guy sounds very ‘flattened out’. Is this just a different variety/dialect or are they both not native speakers?

Indeed, the girl does not have a native accent, but the guy speaks a good Kabyle, with the native accent the more common in Kabylia.

I see.

It‘s just that your sentences sound much more ‚emotional‘ or ‚emphatic‘ - what I am more used to when I hear people from North-Africa speaking. The guys sound is beautiful, too, but much more flat and equalized, as I already mentioned before.

This way it is even more difficult to correlate the spoken word with the written sentence. With your sentences I find it way easier, though this is a hell of a task to make sense of some sounds you produce ;-)

Thanks anyway!

I guess I really have to find someone speaking a North-African language, in order to get some introduction that makes sense and at the same time offers the possibility to ask questions right away - spoken, and not written!

In my readings, I always try to pronounce as clearly as possible, maybe that's why.
But as you use the North African word it encompasses a multitude of dialects.
There are first the Arabic dialects which are different from one country to another, and then the Berber languages which have nothing to do with Arabic except for the loanwords. Kabyle is a Berber language, but it doesn't really sound like Tashelhit, for example, the most widely spoken Berber language in Morocco, let alone others.
So you still have to know what the person language the person speaks exactly.