Kerler's study ... is characterized by an elegant precision in style that is rare in studies of this kind ... In one stroke ... Kerler clears away the accumulated detritus of a century of baseless speculation and merely conventional wisdom ... Kerler's exemplary work ... will be the basis of all future study of the most important transition in the history of the Yiddish literary language.

• Part 1 Eastern Yiddish in the old literary language: the two early-18th-century East European texts. Part 2 Transition - easternization of old literary Yiddish: the late-18th-century Eastern re-editions of "Kav Hayosher"; the Eastern revision of "Tsene Rene"; the Eastern reprint of "Simkhes Hanefesh"; easternization - a comparative overview. Part 3 Shift - the emergence of nascent modern literary Yiddish: the earliest Eastern-Yiddish work - "Ben Hameylekh Vehanosir" (1771); the first original work in modern-Eastern Yiddish "Mayse Gdoyle Min Uman Umin Ukrayne (c.1783). Part 4 Shift - a comparative analysis: synthesis.

Kerler's study ... is characterized by an elegant precision in style that is rare in studies of this kind ... In one stroke ... Kerler clears away the accumulated detritus of a century of baseless speculation and merely conventional wisdom ... Kerler's exemplary work ... will be the basis of all future study of the most important transition in the history of the Yiddish literary language.

• Part 1 Eastern Yiddish in the old literary language: the two early-18th-century East European texts. Part 2 Transition - easternization of old literary Yiddish: the late-18th-century Eastern re-editions of "Kav Hayosher"; the Eastern revision of "Tsene Rene"; the Eastern reprint of "Simkhes Hanefesh"; easternization - a comparative overview. Part 3 Shift - the emergence of nascent modern literary Yiddish: the earliest Eastern-Yiddish work - "Ben Hameylekh Vehanosir" (1771); the first original work in modern-Eastern Yiddish "Mayse Gdoyle Min Uman Umin Ukrayne (c.1783). Part 4 Shift - a comparative analysis: synthesis.