That's exactly right...the Arabs also invaded sicily around the same time, but didn't get as much as a foothold as they did on Malta...maybe just because of pop

That's exactly right...the Arabs also invaded sicily around the same time, but didn't get as much as a foothold as they did on Malta...maybe just because of population sizes, or the fact that mainland Italy down by current day calabria were also speaking the same language as the Sicilians, so there was a reserve for the language to continue on. So Sicilian (the language) has a lot of borrowing from Arabic (as well as greek) instead of being a dialect of arabic.