Reflect on the history of your target language. To what language family does it belong? What sounds, words, and structures exemplify periods of contact with other cultures? How do these considerations enhance your understanding of the target language and culture in terms of their associated historical origin, development, and contemporary realization? and pragmatic questions of usage? How do languages change over time? How do linguists track, predict, and extrapolate these changes?
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I think it's really interesting how many languages influenced the formation of Korean. It almost feels as if the language tree model limits this expression even though it hasn't. I'm interested to know whether loan words as you described it has an impact on the determination of which branch a language falls under within a language family. I think your discussion is great because it touches on aspects that I feel language families don't go too deeply into: the impact of the globalization of language.
I also encountered a similar argument for Turkish concerning its language family. I was not aware of the controversy between the Altaic and Koreanic classification for Korean. I also noticed some loanwords in Turkish, which are Arabic and Persian remnants from the transition from Ottoman Turkish to modern Turkish following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. I think I further experienced the same drive to learn more about both the construction of modern Turkish and the evolution of Ottoman Turkish once I discovered more about its cultural history.
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