Dear List:
Believe it or not, but I find the verb "vega" a bit difficult.
I therefore take the liberty of looking it up, and making some
notes about it, hoping that others will equally benefit.
First of all, in modern Icelandic, there are two verbs "vega":
1. to weigh, wiegen, peser. (s)
2. to make a way, wegsam machen, rendre carrossable. (w)
It is, however, only the first of these that is a strong verb.
The second one is weak. These two forms of the verb therefore differ a lot in
their inflection:
1. vega, hann vegur, hann vó, þeir vógu, hann vægi, vegið.
(to weigh, he weighs, he weighed, they weighed, he may have weighed, I
have weighed)
2. vega, hann vegar, hann vegaði, þeir veguðu, hann vegaði, vegað.
(to "way", he ways, he wayed, they wayed, he may have wayed, I have wayed)
As you see, these two verbs are rather different in their morpology, and it
is only the two infinitive forms that are equal. The verb we have been
using thus far, is only the first (strong) verb. (hann vó)
In Old Norse I can only find references to the first verb -- the strong verb,
that in ON has the main forms:
vega (= viga), hann vegr, hann vá, þeir vágu, hann vægi, vegit (or vigit).
"vega" (str. vb.) does however have a number of different meanings in ON:
I. 1. to lift up; to weigh up, as with an iron stong.
2. to carry; to swing or to chop, as with a weapon.
3. to weigh, to have a certain weight.
4. to weigh in the mind, to interpret, to have something to say.
5. to weigh, find out how heavy something is.
6. to value.
II. to attack with weapons; to make war; to kill.
(the above was only a simplified survey of my dictionary entries --> cf.
Heggstad et. al.)
(I have left out the mediopassive form (-st forms), as well as the examples
of use).
As for etymology, Jan de Vries offers the following explanations and
relationships
to similar words in other languages:
I. to swing, to lift, to weigh:
new islandic, færoese, norwegian "vega".
new swedish "väga", new danish "veie".
gothic "gawiga", 'to move'.
old frisian "wega", "weia" 'to move, to bring, to weigh'.
middle low german, middle dutch "wegen" 'to weigh, to consider'.
old indian "vahati" 'to lead, to marry'.
avestian "vazaiti" 'to fare'.
greek "ocheo" 'to carry'.
latin "veho" 'to lead'.
old slavic "veza", "vesti" 'to fare'.
II. to fight, to kill, to revenge; to win.
new icelandic, færoese "vega".
old danish "veie".
old english "gewegan", old high german "wigan" 'to fight, to do battle'.
lit. "apveikiu", 'to connquer, to subdue', "veikiu", "veikti" 'to do,
to be situated', "veka" 'force'.
old slavic "veku" 'force, age'.
old irish "fichim" 'champion' (same as in germanic!)
latin "vinco" 'to conquer'.
So maybe an easy way to remember it, will be by comparing
it to English "to vanquish"
Ek mun vega þik -- I shall vanquish you!
But I cannot help thinking that this "conquering" or "winning"
of strife against others is handled by means of heavy iron bars,
of the type that is used to weigh merchandise.