Maltese escaped Classical Arabic’s pull only by abandoning the Arabic script

Evidence

The exception that proves this rule is Maltese. This is simply a variety of Arabic (an offshoot of the defunct Arabic of Sicily), but because it has been so long isolated from other varieties of Arabic, through being written in the Latin alphabet, because those who speak it are all Christian, and because the island was defended by the Knights of Malta from Islamic reconquest, it has been free to evolve in a way that would not have occurred if it had been anchored to Classical Arabic by the Arabic script. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 616

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the claim that script anchors or liberates a language — parallels e.g. Turkish romanization freeing the language from Arabic/Persian lexical pull.
• CANDY: Nerdy but light: an entire language escaped Arabic’s gravitational pull because it changed scripts and stayed Christian.