OK... Here's my solution.
Mark Reed wrote:
> 1. Palatalization. How do you indicate it? Do you use <j>
> or <y>? If you want to faithfully reproduce the Cyrillic
> spelling, you also have to distinguish palatalization that is
> implicit in the letter from that which is explicit via a soft
> sign. An apostrophe is often used for the latter.
>
Only explicit, real palatization is marked; it is marked with <j>.
> 2. What does <e> represent? You have two E letters in
> Cyrillic, three if you want visual similarity for the
> palatalizing O sound; how do you get that out of the single
> Roman letter? And do you use a visual mapping, where a
> bare <e> is palatalizing, just like the bare Cyrillic E is?
> Or a phonemic transcription where bare <e> is non-
> palatalizing and you put a <j> or <y> in front of it?
>
<e> is non-palatalizing, and <je> is palatalizing. No copying of Cyrilic. (Then
the palatalizing <o> is <jo>.)
> 3. The three I-ish vowels. How do you represent short i
> and yeru? Usually <j> and <y> are chosen, but you
> have to avoid ambiguity with palatalization.
>
Short <i> is written as <i>, long <i> is written as <í> (if there is /i:/ at all),
and yeru is written <y>. (Because /j/ is written <j>, there is no ambiguity.)
How does that sound?
--Robert