He does speak of them as if they still exist, and that would seem to imply a first-hand knowledge of them.

: As to translating, I offer the following based on Tolkien
: recieving the books from hobbits.
: It is possible that some translations had already been done by
: later hobbits prior to Tolkien recieving the books. Over the
: passage of time, hobbits probably continued to speak and write
: in the language most common to their location, perhaps some
: later hobbit had translated parts of the books into Old
: English, Welsh or another language that Tolkien already knew.
: Bilbo's translations of elvish would, of course, have been in
: the Red Book. This would make Tolkien's task of translating
: much easier than starting from scratch.

Actually, I think if we are to suppose the hobbits gave the Red Book to Tolkien, then why not assume that they taught him the languages as well? He had a great gift (and love for) language and he learned many of them to one degree or another.

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