mechanisms acting together may break the gauge group, reducing its rank, and yielding scalar fields as the extra dimensional components of the gauge fields, which may play the role of flavons. In section \[so3\] we apply these ideas to $SO(3)$ gauged family symmetry, in 5d, and show how triplet flavons with VEVs can emerge. In section \[su4\] we discuss an $SU(4)$ gauge family symmetry model in 5d, and show how complex triplet and antitriplet flavons with VEVs can arise in this case, and show how they may have effective couplings to fermions in a proto-model of quark and lepton flavour based on this mechanism. In section \[Wilson\] we give a general definition of Wilson lines and orbifolds which may be extended to any number of dimensions, including non-commutative aspects Wilson lines, which may be useful for aligning additional flavons. Section \[conclusion\] concludes the paper.

Wilson Lines and Orbifolds in 5d {#Wilson5d}
================================

Extra dimensions provide new mechanisms to break symmetries that are not available in 4d. In this section we review the Wilson line and orbifold mechanisms, to show how the two mechanisms acting together may break the gauge group, reducing its rank, and yielding scalar fields as the extra 