Lexical agraphia in the Japanese language. Pure agraphia for Kanji due to left posteroinferior temporal lesions.

A new syndrome of 'pure agraphia for Kanji' is described in 3 Japanese subjects with lesions in the left posteroinferior temporal region. Kanji (ideogram or morphogram) can be compared with orthographically irregular or ambiguous words in some European languages, since it is impossible to write Kanji characters unless each one of them is learned and memorized. In contrast, Kana (phonogram or syllabogram) words are comparable with orthographically regular words or nonsense words, because the Kana writing system depends on strict phonological rules (almost one-to-one correspondence between syllable and syllabogram). We conclude that 'lexical agraphia' reported in European languages can also be observed in the Japanese language where it is expressed as 'pure agraphia for Kanji'. 'Lexical agraphia' is a useful concept with general application regardless of language system.