  In this paper we propose the idea that flavons can emerge from extra
dimensional gauge fields, referred to as gauge-flavon unification (GFU)
analogous to gauge-Higgs unification (GHU). We assume that there is a gauged
family symmetry in extra dimensions and that the flavons are the extra
dimensional components of the gauge field. This provides a simple mechanism to
align the VEVs of the flavons through a combination of Wilson lines and
orbifold symmetry breaking. We present some simple 5d examples of GFU based on
$SO(3)$ and $SU(4)$ gauged family symmetry, the latter case yielding
$SU(3)\times U(1)$ gauged family symmetry in 4d, broken by triplet and
antitriplet flavons, with effective couplings to fermions. We also present a
general formalism for Wilson lines and orbifolds, in any number of dimensions,
including non-commutative aspects Wilson lines, which may be useful for
aligning additional flavons as required for realistic models.
