C is not a language optimized for stability. The possibility for segfaults, buffer overflows, etc. and the lack of a sensible mechanism for handling them other than "write the program correctly" demonstrate this. It is, essentially, a language optimized for writing Unix.

Shell is not a language optimized for stability. It is optimized for interactive use, above all else - it's not even a very good scripting language, even though it's historically been used that way an awful lot.

Python is not a language optimized for stability - it's not even mentioned in the Zen of Python: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/

The primary focus of Java (at the time of it's creation) was "write once, run anywhere". The primary focus of Java (now) is "languages that compile to JVM bytecode are nifty - plus, we have C-like syntax but are a high-level language".

The primary focus of Erlang, before and above anything else, is program stability. OTP exists to increase stability. "Let it crash" exists to increase stability. Parallelism and message passing are in the language not because they're neat, but because (if they are used at all sensibly) they will increase stability.