Does knowing Pali/Sanskrit (and to which level) give one more insights while reading Buddhist scripts?

I think we all have experienced with our own native languages how works written a while back can have different words for the same meaning or the other way round. Also that words get lost in translations, almost inevitably. Metaphor and other rhetorical uses of a language may be hard to detect as well and last but not least, the lack of modern scientific terminologies may likewise contribute to ambiguity and confusion. Therefore I'd like to pose the following questions: 1.How well studied are the Buddhist scripts? (compared to the modern study on Greek, Roman and medieval philosophy) 2.How well studied are Pali and Sanskrit linguistically in the context of Buddhism? (compared to ancient Greek and Latin, or even Arabic/Islam if someone has experiences) 3.What efforts have people made to prevent misunderstanding caused by the observations I mentioned at the very beginning? 4.Although I know there are such things called canonical scripts/literature, I'd still like to know others' opinions regarding what (and maybe how) to read, and what to believe literally. ps: my personal preference would be those that are most loyal to Gautama's own words with few extended discussions and little personal guessing, but what scriptures would this comprise?