Most Patriarchal eastern churches of Greek origin had liturgy in the vernacular pre VII.
Many non patriarchal churches whose highest ranking clergy were only Metropolitans fell under a tighter Roman governance and Rome normally did not usually give permission for vernacular. Thus the Melkites for example used Greek, Syriac and Arabic long before Vatican II but the Malankara catholics had no such patriarch and so fell under standard Roman practice of preserving the sacred language when there was danger of extinction